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STATUE OF 

GOVERNOR 

FRANCIS HARRISON 

PIERPONT 

PROCEEDINGS IN STATUARY HALL AND 
IN THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES ON THE OCCASION 
OF THE UNVEILING. RECEPTION, AND 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE FROM 
THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA 



COMPILED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
JOINT COMMITTEE ON PRINTING 






WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1910 



Concurrent Resolution. 

Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring). That 
there be printed and bound the proceedings in Congress, together with the 
proceedings at the unveiling in Statuary Hall upon the acceptance of the 
statue of Francis H. Pierpont, presented by the State of West Virginia, 
sixteen thousand five hundred copies, of which five thousand shall be for 
the use of the Senate and ten thousand for the use of the House of Repre- 
sentatives and the remaining one thousand five hundred copies shall be 
for the use and distribution of the Senators and Representatives in Congress 
from the State of West Virginia. 

The Joint Committee on Printing is hereby authorized to have the copy 
prepared for the Public Printer, who shall procure suitable copper-process 
plates to be bound with these proceedings. 

Passed June 6, 1910. 



OCT 13 1910 



^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

J- 

Page 

Biography of Francis Harrison Pierpont ..... 6 

Ceremonies in Statuary Hall ....... 9 

Invocation by Rev. Henry N.Couden ..... 9 

- Address of Hon. Thomas C. Miller ..... 10 

Unveiling of statue by Miss Frances P. Siviter ... 20 

Addressof Governor William E.Glasscock . . . . 20 

Recital of poem by Miss Siviter ...... 40 

Address of Hon. Alston Gordon Dayton .... 41 

Benediction by Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce .... 60 

Proceedings in the Senate ....... 63 

Prayer by Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce . ... . . 63 

Address of Mr. Klkins, of West Virginia .... 67 

Address of Mr. DoUiver, of Iowa ...... 75 

Address of Mr. Heyburn, of Idaho ..... 99 

Address of Mr. Oliver, of Pennsylvania . . . .103. 

Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia . . . . 107 

Proceedings in the House . . . . , . . . .113 

Address of Mr. Hubbard, of West Virginia . . . 115 
Address of Mr Keif er, of Ohio . . . . . .123 

Addressof Mr. Payne, of New York ..... 143 

Address of Mr. Gaines, of West Virginia . . . - i57 

Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia . . . . i6l 

3 




(^^,//J UA^^ury^ * 



FRANCIS HARRISON PIERPONT 



Born January 25, 1814, in Monongalia County, Va. (now Marion 
County, W. Va.). A graduate of Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., in 
1839; a teacher for some years; a successful lawyer and business man, 
engaged in mining coal and manufacturing fire brick. 

Antislavery Whig in politics; elector in 1848. 

A leading member of the Methodist Protestant Church. 

Elected provisional governor of Virginia on the 20th day of June, 1861, by 
the Wheeling Convention. 

Elected governor of Virginia on the fourth Thursday of May, 1862, by 
the people, to fill out the unexpired term of John Letcher, who was declared 
to have vacated his office by having joined the Confederacy. 

On the fourth Thursday of May, 1863, he was elected for the full term of 
four years, beginning January i, 1864, and removed the seat of government 
from Wheeling to Alexandria before the State of West Virginia began its 
legal existence, on June 20, 1863. 

On the 25th day of May, 1865, he removed the seat of government to 
Richmond, and served till the end of his term, January i, 1868, and held 
over till the i6th day of April, 1868, when Major-General Schofield, in 
command of the First Military District (Virginia), appointed Henry H. 
Wells provisional governor. 

In 1868 Governor Pierpont returned to his home at Fairmont, W. Va. 

He was elected to the house of delegates in 1869, and later was appointed 
collector of internal revenue for West Virginia by President Garfield. 

He never was governor of West Virginia. 

He died at Pittsburg, at the home of his daughter, March 24, 1899, and 
was buried at Fairmont, W. Va. 

5 



CEREMONIES IN STATUARY HALL 

Exercises held in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, Washington, 
D. C, April 30, 1910, at 10 o'clock a. m., on the unveiling and 
presentation of the statue of Francis Harrison Pierpont, by 
the State of West Virginia, Hon. Harry Chapman Woodyard 
presiding. 

Mr. Woodyard. I have been requested to preside on this 
occasion by the commission created by an act of the legislature 
of West Virginia to have prepared and placed in this hall a 
statue of a distinguished and honored son of that State. 

The Chaplain of the House of Representatives, Rev. Henry 
N. Couden, D. D., will invoke the divine blessing. 

Invocation by Reverend Henry N. Couden 

God of the ages, our father's God and our God, whose omnis- 
cient and omnipotent love has shaped and guided the destiny 
of men and of nations. 

And step by step, since time began, 
We see the steady gain of man. 

From savagery to barbarism, from barbarism to a civilization 
which found its fullest fruition in the genius of our great Re- 
public, "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal." 

We thank Thee from our heart of hearts for the great men who 
"conceived, resolved, and maintained;" long may it live a 
blessing to mankind and an honor to Thy holy name. We are 
assembled here under the Dome of its Capitol, in this Hall of 
Fame, to add to the immortal group a scholar, a statesman, a 

9 



lo Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



Christian patriot whose life and deeds add luster to the pages 
of American history. Long may these statues in mute elo- 
quence proclaim to the world liberty, justice, equal rights, and 
inspire coming generations to honest toil, patriotic fervor, and 
Godly lives. Let Thy blessing attend these sacred ceremonies 
and be with those who shall pay their tribute of love and respect 
to the memory of a distinguished fellow-citizen whose spotless 
character and illustrious deeds are woven into the warp and 
woof of his State and Nation. 

And Thine be the praise through Jesus Christ our Lord, who 
taught us to pray : 

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed he Thy name, Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give 
us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive 
our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. 
Amen. 

Mr. Woody ARD. The statue prepared and here placed by the 
commission will be tendered on behalf of the commission by Hon. 
Thomas C. Miller, secretary, to the State of West Virginia, in 
final discharge of the duties imposed upon it by the legislature 
of West Virginia. 

Address of Honorable Thomas C. Miller 

The civil war in the United States, beginning in 1861, was 
not as has been so generally thought the primal cause of the 
formation of West Virginia ; it was only the occasion that made 
such a procedure possible. For many years there had been 
discontent in the western part of Virginia, growing out of 
unequal representation and discrimination in taxation coupled 
with the then ever-present question of human slavery. While no 
direct movement looking to the division of the State had been 
attempted, nevertheless there was a spirit of unrest in the trans- 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall ii 

Allegheny region, and it had been emphatically declared many 
times by the western leaders of both the Whig and the Demo- 
cratic parties that, unless the tide water and Piedmont region 
of Virginia became more liberal in dealing with the western sec- 
tions of the State, separation would inevitably follow sooner or 
later. 

Students of American history will recall that previous to the 
adoption of the Constitution in 1787 there had been no fewer 
than seven plans proposed looking to the organization of new 
States west of the Alleghenies. Some of these movements had 
taken definite form, as will be recalled in the effort to establish 
Vandalia, Westsylvania, and the State of Franklin, and it is a 
remarkable fact that no fewer than five of these proposed plans 
included in their boundary the whole or a part of what is now 
West Virginia. The Ohio River, Pennsylvania, and Maryland 
boundaries of West Virginia are identical with those of two of 
the projected new States. 

Geographic influences also had much effect on the material, 
political, and social conditions of the two sections. The main 
ridge of the Allegheny Mountains, with its northeast and south- 
west trend, formed a barrier through the center of the State 
which, before the days of modern engineering, had seemed almost 
insurmountable. The trade of the western section was largely 
down the Ohio or to Baltimore and the East. There was con- 
siderable traffic down the Monongahela to Pittsburg, and Phila- 
delphia and New York could be more easily reached from 
Wheeling than could Richmond and Norfolk, and so commercial 
relations did not do much to assist in making a bond of unity. 
Furthermore, the settlers of the two regions differed widely in 
nationality, manners, and customs as well as in political senti- 
ment, and there was not that community of interest which, even 
without legal enactment, oftentimes binds a people together. 
The tide water and the eastern part of the State had been settled 



12 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

largely by the cavalier element, while the Ohio Valley and the 
western interior had been peopled mainly by those who had 
migrated from the colonies farther north, especially the Scotch- 
Irish from eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and 
Connecticut. These pioneers wended their way across the 
mountains over roaxis which had first been blazed through the 
woods by the troops under Braddock, Washington, and Forbes. 
Coming to the headwaters of the tributaries of the upper Ohio 
they made themselves homes in the valleys and hill lands of 
western Virginia, and became the ancestors of as brave and 
patriotic a people as this country has produced. Speaking of 
the influence of the Scotch-Irish element in our national life, 
John Fiske, the historian, says: 

Once planted in the Allegheny region they spread rapidly and in large 
numbers toward the southwest along the mountain country through the 
Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolinas. At a later time they formed al- 
most the entire population of western Virginia, and they were the men 
who chiefly built up the Commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee. 
* * * When our civil war came these men were a great power on both 
sides, but the influence of the chief mass of them, was exerted on the side 
of the Union; it held Kentucky and a large part of Tennessee, and broke 
Virginia in twain. 

The one whom we honor here to-day and whose great work in 
the formation of the State we commemorate in this beautiful 
statue was a descendant of one of these hardy pioneers who 
settled in what is now Monongalia County previous to the 
Revolutionary war. 

The above well-known historical facts have been referred to 
briefly in an effort to correct the widespread misapprehension 
among the younger generation as to the initiative of the move- 
ment which led to the dismemberment of Virginia. West Vir- 
ginia was not formed merely as the outgrowth of a feeling en- 
gendered and embittered by the civil war, but was the logical 
culmination of a diverse political sentiment that had mani- 
fested itself through a period of nearly three quarters of a cen- 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 13 

tury. These things are not presented here to-day in any offen- 
sive sense, but to call attention to some of the errors which have 
crept into our histories and that have misled many of the youth 
of our country. 

When the ordinance of secession was passed by the Virginia 
convention in 1861, it was by no means by a unanimous vote. 
The record shows that only 88 members voted for the passage 
of the measure and 55 against it. Of the 55 men who voted 
against the ordinance 33 lived west of the Alleghenies, and at 
once they became the target of severe criticism and vituperation 
in Richmond and the east, even the lives of some being threat- 
ened. Returning to their homes, loyal to the Old Flag, we do 
not wonder that a spirit of patriotic zeal was soon manifest all 
through the western part of the State. We are not surprised, 
either, to find the same men who had left the Richmond con- 
vention, some of whom had been expelled and others whose 
seats had been declared vacant, among the leaders who assem- 
bled as the representatives of the people in the Wheeling con- 
ventions in May and June following. 

In passing it may be remarked that no more practical demon- 
stration of the principle enunciated in Lincoln's famous utter- 
ance at Gettysburg, "government of the people, by the people, 
for the people," has' ever been seen than in this loyal uprising 
in western Virginia in 186 1. It resembled the Roman Republic 
in the brightest period of its history, when the populace met 
in the Forum, chose their rulers, dictated policies, and deter- 
mined future action. 

When the delegates assembled at Wheeling in May, 1861, in 
obedience to what seemed to be an instinctive command of the 
people, there was a very strong sentiment in favor of immediate 
statehood for the trans- Allegheny section of Virginia. Indeed 
some who had been advocating a new Commonwealth claimed 
that this was the long desired opportunity, and that if action 



14 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

were not taken at this time the occasion would be lost forever. 
The wiser and more conservative element of the convention 
was, for a time, subjected to a good deal of adverse criticism, be- 
cause it opposed such precipitate action, and it was only by an 
earnest appeal to their patriotism and under a solemn promise 
that as soon as it could be done in accordance with the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, steps would be taken looking to the 
formation of a new State, that a compromise was reached and 
conciliatory measures agreed upon. And here it was that the 
wise foresight and eminent ability of Governor PierponT mani- 
fested itself. I have heard him tell where he was and of his 
exultation when the thought occurred to him that the way 
had opened up and that a new State could be legally organized 
if proper methods were pursued. The ancient alchemist is said 
to have exclaimed, "Eureka ! Eureka !" but a generally accepted 
tradition, now confirmed by the family record, says that Gov- 
ernor Pikrpont's exclamation was even more emphatic, "I 
have it! I have it!" Perplexed and almost bewildered on ac- 
count of the situation, he had sat down to read the Constitution 
of the United States through, section by section, and when he 
came to section 4 of Article IV it seemed to have a new meaning 
to him, and to apply very definitely to the condition of affairs 
then existing. The section to which I have alluded and which 
opened the way to meet the great crisis of 1861 in western Vir- 
ginia, reads as follows : 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a repub- 
lican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, 
and on application of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature 
can not be convened, against domestic violence. 

As already stated, a large majority of the delegates in the 
May convention were in favor of immediate action looking to 
the formation of a new State, so Governor Pierpont's sugges- 
tion for the organization of the restored government of Virginia 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 15 

and an appeal to the General Government at Washington for 
recognition was at first not well received. However, he ably 
presented his view of the crisis and was cordially supported by 
Waitman T. Willey, John J. Jackson, Daniel Lamb, and other 
conservative leaders who had great influence among the dele- 
gates, and finally his plan was adopted and put into effect. He 
was chosen provisional governor, an appeal was made to Presi- 
dent Lincoln, who immediately recognized the new government; 
Wheeling was established as the temporary capital, and a call 
was made for volunteers to assist in suppressing the rebellion. 
This seemingly anomolous situation has scarcely had a parallel 
in history. A State in rebellion against the General Government 
and a portion of that State in revolt against the same state 
authorities and claiming to be the rightfully constituted state 
government, and out of all this confusion a new Commonwealth 
formed and the thirty-fifth star added to the galaxy in our flag. 
Writing on this subject some years ago, Honorable A. W. 
Campbell, for a long time editor of the Wheeling Intelligencer, 
a strong advocate of the new-state movement, and one of Gov- 
ernor PieRPONT's most ardent and efficient supporters, said: 

The great fact patent and well known to you is that West Virginia was 
loyal to the Union and that her loyalty enabled you at once to push forward 
your lines to the Allegheny Mountains. History will dwell on this fact 
and will more fully explain it than I have done and will pay it the tribute 
it so well deserves. History 'will also reveal other facts, many of them per- 
sonal in their character, that entered into the great movement for the 
Union in West Virginia in 186 r. I will allude to only one of them. Here 
in our presence to-day is an old man who was then in his prime, who is the 
repository of as much of the unpublished history of West Virginia in the 
war as any man in the State. All his life before the war the voice of this 
man was heard in the mountains as of one crying in the wilderness, warning 
the people of the beguilements of those who were luring them into espousals 
and indorsements of doctrine that would commit them to secession, rebellion, 
and war, and when the evil day at last came and Virginia threw off her 
allegiance to the Union he grasped, among the very first, the idea of the 
loyal people assuming and taking on and carrying forward her indestructible 
stateship and of organizing a provisional government under which and 



i6 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

around which all the loyal people of Virginia, of which State we were then 
a part, could rally. It was the first case of the kind in American history and 
forms a precedent fully confirmed and ratified by the United States. It 
was all regular and simply based upon the theory that when sovereignty 
lapses by reason of treasonable alliance on the part of existing state authority 
it reverts ipso facto to the loyal people of the Commonwealth and by them 
can be at once embodied in a provisional government. The conception 
and formation of this idea belongs as much, if not more, to the man to whorn 
I am alluding, ex-Governor PiERPONT, of Marion County, than to any other 
man in West Virginia. 

Man is prone to speculate on what might have happened had 
conditions been different. For instance, if Napoleon had been 
informed as to the sunken road near Waterloo, or had Blucher 
arrived earlier, the map of Europe might not be as it is to-day. 
Students of military history have for years asked what would 
have resulted if Lee had vigorously attacked Burnside at Fred- 
ericksburg before the Union Army reached the other side of the 
Rappahannock, and much speculation has been indulged in as to 
the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg if Meade had renewed 
the contest on July 4, 1863. This, you say, is mere speculation; 
but we are told that history is philosophy teaching by experience 
and example, and if -this be true we may better interpret some 
things of the past as well as discern the future by the light of 
this experience and observation. 

If you will look at the map of the United States, you will 
see that it is only a short distance from the northern Pan- 
handle of West Virginia to Lake Brie. Had not the western 
part of Virginia adhered to the Union, this narrow strip of 80 
miles would have been the only connecting link between the 
Bast and the West. What might have resulted had the Gov- 
ernment not been able to maintain a line of communication 
between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi Valley by 
means of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and through the 
Kanawha Valley, no one can tell. The estimate that President 
Lincoln placed upon tiie action of the loyal people of the moun- 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 17 

tains is indicated in the statement he made with reference to 
the admission of West Virginia into the Union, and which you 
find on the programme which is in your hands to-day. 

Should I be asked to characterize the patriotic work of 
Governor Pierpont in one brief statement, it would be that 
he was the conservative leader who made it possible by legal 
methods to constitute the State of West Virginia. I have said 
he was conservative, and so he was; but when his duty was 
made plain then he became the aggressive, earnest, capable 
leader, brave and daring, fearing only not to do right. No 
more patriotic citizen ever lived in the Commonwealth over 
whose affairs he had control for nearly eight years. I refer, 
of course, to the State of Virginia, because he was never gov- 
ernor of West Virginia. He was known, however, as one of 
the war governors and assisted in putting into the field more 
than 40,000 troops in the support of the Union cause. He 
was intimately associated with John A. Andrew, Oliver P. 
Morton, John A. Dix, and others of that notable group of 
men who loyally supported President Lincoln throughout the 
civil conflict and who rendered such efficient aid toward the 
suppression of the rebellion. 

To others has been allotted the pleasing task of speaking 
more fully of the life and character of the one whom we honor 
here to-day. I can not forbear, however, from saying a word 
in this connection. Graduating from Allegheny College, at 
Meadville, Pennsylvania, Governor PierponT had as class- 
mates and tutors such men as Gordon Battelle, Bishop Mathew 
Simpson, Bishop Kingsley, Homer Clark, and others, among 
whom existed a friendship that was severed only by death. 
Implicitly accepting the faith of his fathers, he became an 
active Christian worker, and whether as Sunday-school teacher 

and superintendent, or as president of the highest ecclesiastical 
49963° — 10 2 



i8 Governor Francis Harrison Pier pout 

organization of his denomination, the Methodist Protestant 
Church, his ability, his zeal, and broad humanitarianism were 
always manifest. 

In beautiful Woodlawn Cemetery, near the town which was 
his home for nearly three quarters of a century, lie the remains 
of the noble character whose pure life and whose lofty patriot- 
ism we commemorate at this hour. On his tomb is chiseled 
the phrase, "Father of West Virginia," and just below, with 
even a higher meaning and in loftier strain, we read, "Patriot, 
Statesman, Christian." 

The first suggestion that the statue of Francis H. PierponT 
should be one of West Virginia's contributions to this Hall 
was in a resolution adopted by the Society of the Army of 
West Virginia at Fairmont in 1900. At the next session 
of the legislature a bill was introduced providing for such a 
statue, and after careful consideration the measure was passed 
by a unanimous vote and a commission constituted to carry 
out the provisions of the act. The members of the commission 
were as follows: Albert B. White, governor; Anthony Smith, 
president of the senate; William G. Wilson, speaker of the 
house; and James F. Brown, Clarence L. Smith, John Frew, 
and Thomas C. Miller. Shortly afterwards the commission 
organized and after considerable correspondence, with artists 
and sculptors and frequent conferences with the family of 
Governor Pierpont, a contract for the execution of the work 
was awarded to Mr. Franklin Simmons, a prominent American 
sculptor then residing at Rome, Italy. Work on the model 
and the statue progressed satisfactorily, and it was completed 
and placed where it now stands in December, 1904. It is 
with sadness that we record the death of two members of the 
commission before the work was finished — Honorable John 
Frew, of Wheeling, and General Clarence h. Smith, of Fair- 
mont. Both were lifelong friends of Governor Pierpont, and 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 19 

they would have rejoiced with us to-day in the completion of 
this fitting testimonial to the life and character of their old 
friend and associate. 

For various reasons the presentation of the statue has been 
delayed till this hour. The principal cause has been the ina- 
bility of the governor's only daughter, Mrs. W. H. Siviter, on 
account of feeble health, earlier to attend the ceremonies which 
she to-day witnesses with gratitude and thanks to all who have 
had any part in thus honoring her father. This large body of 
West Virginians, testifying to the debt of gratitude they owe 
one of her leading citizens, shows that Governor Pierpont is 
not forgotten, but that his memory is held in loving remem- 
brance by the people of the State which he had such a promi- 
nent part in making. 

To me it is a peculiar pleasure to have a part in these cere- 
monies, tinged even as they are by sadness. It is my fondest 
memory that Governor PierponT was my father's lifelong 
friend; he was my boyhood ideal, the counselor of my early 
manhood and the inspiration of my best efforts, and I am 
glad to know that his prototype is to stand in this Hall among 
those who have made the world better by their high ideals, 
their lofty patriotism, their unblemished character, and their 
sublime devotion to duty. 

And now. Governor Glasscock, on behalf of the commission 
constituted by the legislature of West Virginia, and authorized 
to procure a statue in marble of Francis Harrison Pierpont, 
I have the honor of presenting to you. West Virginia's chief 
executive, the statue provided by the commission. It stands 
here amidst this group of great Americans as the symbol of 
a life that was singularly devoted to the public service in the 
highest patriotic endeavor and as a type of noble manhood 
worthy the emulation of all the youth of our land. 



,20 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

Mr. WooDYARD. The statue will be unveiled by Miss Frances 
Pierpont Siviter, a granddaughter of Governor Francis Har- 
rison Pierpont. 

[The statue was then unveiled amid great applause.] 
Mr. WooDYARD. I have very great pleasure in introducing to 
you Honorable 'William E. Glasscock, governor of West Vir- 
ginia, who will accept the statue on behalf of the State. 

Address of Governor William E. Glasscock. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: Francis H. Pierpont, whose 
statue in marble I thus have the honor to present on behalf 
of the State of West Virginia to the American Congress, was 
the third son of Francis and Catharine (Weaver) Pierpont, 
and was born January 25, 1814, in Monongalia County, Vir- 
ginia, on the farm settled by his grandfather, John Pierpont. 
In 1 814, Francis Pierpont, the father of the subject, moved 
from the old homestead to land purchased by him about 2 
miles from Fairmont, now Marion — then Harrison — County, 
West Virginia. In 1827 he made his residence in Middletown, 
now Fairmont, where he conducted a tannery in connection 
with his farm. His young son Francis H., the subject, as- 
sisted his father in his several occupations until manhood. 
His educational opportunities were, in the meantime, limited. 
In June, 1835, he entered Allegheny College, at Meadville, 
Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated with the degree 
of bachelor of arts in September, 1839. He taught school 
until 1 841, when he removed to Mississippi, where he contin- 
ued teaching; but the following year he returned home because 
of the failing health of his father. Having studied law in the 
leisure intervals of his career as a teacher, he was now ad- 
mitted to the bar. From 1848 for a period of eight years 
he served as local counsel of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
Company for the counties of Marion and Taylor. In 1853 he 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 



21 



engaged in the mining and shipping of coal by rail, and soon 
after in the manufacture of fire bricks. In December, 1854, 
he married Julia A., daughter of Reverend Samuel Robinson, 
a Presbyterian minister of New York. In religious faith he 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He now 
confined himself to the law, and was engaged in its practice 
at Fairmont when the terrible storm of civil strife swept over 
the land. Nowhere else did it rage so fiercely as in Virginia, 
which then extended from the Chesapeake to the Ohio. The 
year i860 5Found this grand "Old Dominion" in a state of 
the wildest commotion, a condition unexampled in history, 
unless it be France in the early days of the French Revolu- 
tion. Her people hesitated long, but at length the time for 
final action arrived, and Governor John Letcher, influenced 
by the pressure of the time, issued a proclamation convening 
the general assembly in extraordinary session on January 7, 
1 86 1, and some days later an act was passed providing for a 
convention of the people of Virginia to meet February 4, 1861. 
It was a remarkable body of men. Among them were ex- 
President John Tyler, Honorable Henry A. Wise, ex-governor 
of the Commonwealth, and many others who had held high 
positions in the councils of the State and Nation. 

The world knows the story of the action of that convention. 
On the 17th of April, 1 861, it adopted an ordinance of secession. 
This action was popular in eastern Virginia, where from the 
mountains to sea all was enthusiasm, but it met with fierce oppo- 
sition in the northwestern part of the old Commonwealth. 
There for weeks public meetings of citizens had been held in 
many of the counties, in all of which there was not only an 
expression of the disapproval of secession, but a determined 
effort to resist it. Thus far all had been individual action on the 
part of the several counties, but now (April 22, 1861) the first 
call for united action went out from Clarksburg in Harrison 



-22 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

County, the birthplace of "Stonewall" Jackson. There, but 
five days after the adoption of the ordinance of secession, nearly 
twelve hundred citizens convened in compliance with a call 
issued forty-eight hours before. The convention was organ- 
ized by the election of John Hursey chairman and John W. 
Harris secretary. There were eminent speakers present, and 
much enthusiasm was manifested. Before adjournment a pre- 
amble and series of resolutions were adopted without a dissenting 
voice. One of the latter was as follows : 

Be it resolved, That it be and is hereby recommended to the people in 
«ach and all of the counties composing northwestern Virginia to appoint 
delegates, not less than five in number, of their wisest, best, and most dis- 
creet men, to meet in convention on the 13th day of May next, to consult 
and determine upon such action as the people of northwestern Virginia 
should take in the present fearful emergency. 

A succeeding resolution named ten of the foremost men present 
to represent Harrison County in the proposed convention. 

That evening, Mr. C. E. Ringler, editor and proprietor of the 
Western Virginia Guard, published at Clarksburg, issued an extra 
edition of his paper in which was printed an "Address of the con- 
vention to the people of northwestern Virginia." In this the 
foregoing preamble and resolutions were embodied. Messengers 
mounted on horseback bore copies of the Guard to Weston, 
Kingwood, and Morgantown, and to adjoining and adjacent 
counties. Other copies were distributed along the lines of rail- 
road westward to Wheeling and Parkersburg, eastward to Mar- 
tinsburg, and even to the lower Potomac. The time was short, 
the emergency great, and from Hancock County to Wayne and 
from Wood to Berkeley the people hastened to comply with the 
request of the Clarksburg convention. Public meetings were 
held in counties, in cities, in towns, at churches, schoolhouses, 
and crossroads, and delegates appointed to the proposed con- 
vention at Wheeling. Days seemed weeks, but time passed and 
brought the eventful 13th day of May, 1861. 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 23 



THE I^IRST CONVENTION OF THE PEOPLE OF NORTHWESTERN 

VIRGINIA. 

■ The morning of the 13th day of May, 1 861, witnessed a gather- 
ing in the city of WheeHng of the most determined men that ever 
assembled on the banks of the Ohio. The convention convened 
at 1 1 o'clock in Washington Hall. It was but ten days before 
the vote on the ordinance of secession. The body was called to 
order by Honorable Chester D. Hubbard, on whose motion Wil- 
liam B. Zinn, of Preston County, was made temporary president; 
and George R. Latham, of Taylor County, was chosen temporary 
secretary. The report of the committee on credentials showed 
that 436 duly accredited delegates were in attendance. The 
committee on permanent organization reported as follows: F'or 
president, John W. Moss, of Wood County; for secretaries, 
Charles B. Waggener, of Mason County, Marshall M. Dent, of 
Monongalia County, and J. Chandler, of Ohio County. A com- 
mittee was appointed on state and federal relations, consisting of 
one member from each of the twenty-eight counties represented. 
The real work of the 'convention now began. A very excited 
controversy sprang up on the plan to be adopted for immediate 
action. There were those — many of them — who came to the 
convention determined to vote for an immediate and unqualified 
division of the State, however violent or revolutionary it might 
appear. Some delegations, indeed, came to Wheeling with a ban- 
ner flying at their head indorsed, "New Virginia, now or never." 
Their plan was to immediately adopt a constitution and form 
of government for the counties represented and proceed to 
fill all offices by temporary appointment. But there was 
another party, respectable both as to members and intelligence, 
who felt and saw the irreparable mischief that would follow 
in the true point of distinction between spasmodic disruption 
and authorized resistance. Foremost among these was Francis 



24 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

H. Pierpont, one of the delegates from Marion County. He 
and those who acted with him argued that the delegates had not 
been apppointed with this end in view, nor empowered to act 
with such extreme vigor; that the convention had not been 
legally convened, and its action could not, therefore, bind the 
people to acquiescence either in law or reason or by any known 
rule or precedent; that no vote had yet been taken on the 
ordinance of secession, and hence the State of Virginia still had 
a government, under the Constitution of the United States, at 
Richmond; and that the Federal Government would not recog- 
nize a State created thus, because it was not in compliance with 
the mode prescribed by the Constitution of the United States. 
Thus the first and second days were consumed in acrimonious 
debates. The partisans of both views maintained their ground 
with unrelenting hostility, and great dissatisfaction prevailed 
on all sides. Debate was renewed on the morning of the third 
day, but in a milder spirit; the voice of better counsels was 
beginning to prevail, and all felt the imperative necessity of 
some action that should be, as far as possible, harmonious 
in its character. Late at night the discussions were inter- 
rupted by the. committee on state and federal relations begging 
leave to report through its chairman, Campbell Tarr. The 
report consisted of a series of thirteen resolutions, and it was a 
skillful blending of all opinions. The recent action of the Rich- 
mond convention was reviewed and the course to be pursued by 
the people of northwestern Virginia outlined in the event of 
the ratification of the ordinance of secession by the people of 
Virginia on the ensuing 23d day of May, eight days hence. 
This report elicited but little discussion and was adopted with 
but two dissentient voices. Then a single voice was heard amid 
the silent multitude; it was that of earnest prayer beseeching 
the blessings of Heaven upon the work prepared. This ended, 
a thousand voices united in singing the Star-Spangled Banner, 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 25 

and the first convention of the people of northwestern Virginia, 
that usually referred to as the first Wheeling convention, ad- 
journed sine die. 

the; second convention of the pEopi.E of northwestern 

virginia. 

The report of the committee on state and federal relations 

adopted by the first convention provided for a second convention 

should the people ratify the ordnance of secession. This was 

done in the eighth resolution as follows: 

8. Be it resolved, That in the event of the ordinance of secession being 
ratified by a vote, we recommend to the people of the counties here repre- 
sented, and all others disposed to cooperate with us, to appoint on the 4th 
day of June, 1861, delegates to a general convention, to meet on the i ith of 
that month, at such place as may be designated by. the committee herein- 
after provided, to devise such measures and take such action as the safety 
and welfare of the people they represent may demand ; each county to ap- 
point a number of representatives to said convention equal to double the 
number to which it will be entitled in the next house of delegates, and the 
senators and delegates to be elected on the 23d instant, by the counties 
referred to, to the next general assembly of Virginia, and who concur in 
the views of this convention, to be entitled to seats in the said convention 
as members thereof. 

The report further provided for a central committee, together 

with its duties set forth in the twelfth and thirteenth resolutions, 

as follows : 

12. Be it resolved, That John S. Carlile, James S. Wheat, Chester D. 
Hubbard, Francis H. PierponT, Campbell Tarr, George R. Latham, 
Andrew Wilson, S. H. Woodward, and James W. Paxton be a central com- 
mittee to attend to all the matters connected with the objects of this con- 
vention, and that they have power to assemble this convention at any 
time they may think necessary. 

IT,. Be it resolved. That the central committee be instructed to prepare 
an address to the people of Virginia in conformity with the foregoing reso- 
lutions and cause the same to be published and circulated as extensively 
as possible. 

Speedily this central committee, of which Francis H. PiER- 

PONT was a member, prepared and sent out broadcast "An 



26 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



address to the people of northwestern Virginia," which con- 
tained more than two thousand words and was one of the most 
stirring appeals ever made to any people. 

The ordinance of secession was ratified by the people of Vir- 
ginia May 23, 1861, and this, of course, paved the way for a 
second Wheeling' convention of the people of northwestern 
Virginia, as provided for in the foregoing resolution of the first 
convention. Accordingly delegates were appointed on the 4th 
day of June ensuing, and the convention assembled in Washing- 
ton Hall, Wheeling, six days later, June 10. One hundred and 
six members were in attendance, one of whom was Francis H. 
Pierpont, a delegate from Marion County. On his motion 
Dennis B. Dorsey was elected as temporary chairman, and 
Francis H. Pierpont was then made chairman of the com- 
mittee on permanent organization, on the recommendation of 
which Arthur I. Boreman, of Wood County, who afterwards 
became the first governor of West Virginia, was made perma- 
nent president; Gibson Lamb Cranmer, of Ohio County, per- 
manent secretary, and Thomas Hornbrook, of Ohio County, 
sergeant-at-arms. The convention then proceeded to appoint 
a committee on order of business, otherwise known as the com- 
mittee of seventeen. Of this committee Francis H. Pierpont 
was a member. On the third day of the session, this committee 
reported "A declaration of the people of Virginia, represented 
in convention at Wheeling, Thursday, June 13, 1861." It was 
a most remarkable state paper, possessing much historical 
interest for the people of both the Virginias. This was adopted, 
and on the same da> "^he committee of seventeen reported "An 
ordinance for the reorganization of the state government." It 
provided for the appointment of a governor, lieutenant-governor, 
and attorney-general for the State of Virginia by the convention, 
together with an executive council, to consist of five members, 
and prescribed an oath or affirmation to be taken or made by all 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 27 

state and county officers under the reorganized government. 
On the sixth day of the session Francis H. Pikrpont made the 
greatest speech of his life in advocacy of the adoption of this 
ordinance. On the eighth day it was adopted. That evening 
there was a caucus of the members to agree upon nominees for 
the several offices. 

BEGINNING OF THE RESTORED GOVERNMENT — ITS CONTINUANCE 
AT WHEELING. 

On June 20, 1861, the chairman announced that the first busi- 
ness before the convention was the election of a governor, lieu- 
tenant-governor, attorney-general, and council. Then Daniel 
lyamb, of Ohio County, arose and said: 

I desire, Mr. President, to present to the convention for the office of 
governor the name of Francis H. Pierpont, of Marion County. Mr. 
PiERPONT needs no eulogium at my hands. He is known to all of us. He 
is known throughout this country as having been one of the ablest, the most 
decided, and indefatigable advocates of our cause from the very start. We 
all know that heart and soul he is with us. 

No other nominations were made. A vote was taken, and 
every member present voted for Mr. PiErpont. Daniel Polsley, 
of Mason County, was then elected to the office of lieutenant- 
governor and James S. Wheat, of Ohio County, was chosen attor- 
ney-general; Peter G. Van Winkle, of Wood County, Daniel 
Lamb and James W. Paxton, of Ohio County, William A. Harri- 
son, of Harrison County, and William Lazier, of Monongalia 
County, were elected members of the executive council, or coun- 
cil of state. Governor Pierpont then delivered a brief inaugural 
address and took the oath of office, it being administered by 
Andrew Wilson, a justice of the peace for Ohio County. Gov- 
ernor Pierpont acted with great promptness. Early on the 
morning of the next day he appointed Lucian A. Hagans, of 
Preston County, secretary of the Commonwealth. An hour later 
he wrote President Lincoln, informing him that an insurrection 



28 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



existed in Virginia which he was unable to suppress, and there- 
fore called upon the Government of the United States to furnish 
a military force to aid in its suppression and to protect the good 
people of the Commonwealth from domestic violence. Four 
days later Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, made reply, prom- 
ising assistance and directing his letter to "Honorable Francis 
H. Pierpont, governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Wheel- 
ing, Virginia." Five days later Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the 
Interior, certified "To His Excellency Francis H. Pierpont, 
governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia," the basis of repre- 
sentation in Congress, as determined by the Eighth Census, and 
that thereunder the Commonwealth of Virginia was entitled to 
II members in the House of Representatives for the Thirty- 
eighth Congress. Thus, within five days after Governor PiER- 
ponT's election by the convention, he had secured the recognition 
of the restored government by the National Government. This 
convention having completely restored the government of the 
Commonwealth adjourned on the 25th of June to reassemble on 
the 6th of August ensuing. 

Governor Pierpont issued a proclamation, convening the 
general assembly in extraordinary session at Wheeling, July i, 
1 86 1. In this body there were present 10 senators and 49 
members of the house of delegates. Daniel Frost, of Jackson 
County, was elected speaker, and Gibson Lamb Cranmer, of 
Ohio County, clerk. Governor PierponT's message to that 
body is one of the most remarkable state papers connected with 
the restored government. Having dwelt upon the conditions 
of existing civil war, he said : 

We are passing through a period of gloom and darkness in our country's 
history, but we need not despair; there is a just God who rides upon the 
whirlwind and directs the storm. Let us look to Him with abiding confi- 
dence. 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 29 

On the ninth day of the session the assembly elected the fol- 
lowing state officers, viz", Samuel Crane, of Tucker County, 
auditor of public accounts; Campbell Tarr, of Brooke County, 
treasurer of the Commonwealth; and Lucian A. Hagans, of 
Preston County, secretary of the Commonwealth. On the 
same day, the assembly elected John S. Carlile, of Harrison 
County, a United States Senator, to succeed R. M. T. Hunter, 
who had resigned his seat in that body. Then followed an elec- 
tion of the successor to James N. Mason, who, like Hunter, had 
resigned his seat after Virginia adopted the ordinance of seces- 
sion; and Waitman T. Willey, of Monongalia County, was elected 
to this position. Carlile and Willey proceeded at once to Wash- 
ington, where they were admitted to seats in the Congress which 
had assembled in extraordinary session on the 4th day of July. 
Having finished its business, the assembly adjourned July 26. 
The second Wheeling convention reassembled on the 6th day 
of August and continued in session until the 21st day of that 
month. Its chief work was that of providing for the division 
of the State, and the formation of the new State of West Vir- 
ginia within the limits of the old Commonwealth. The assembly 
held its regular session, beginning December 2, 1861, and ending 
February 13, 1862. By an act passed January 7, it provided 
that on the 22d of the ensuing May an election by the people 
should be held to choose officials for the unexpired term of gov- 
ernor, lieutenant-governor, and attorney-general. This was 
done on the date fixed, when Francis H. PierponT received 
14,924 votes for governor, Daniel Polsley 14,328 votes for lieu- 
tenant-governor, and James S. Wheat 13,441 votes for attorney- 
general — all elected without opposition — ^for the unexpired term 
of Governor Letcher and the lieutenant-governor and attorney- 
general serving with him. 

The restored government continued at Wheeling exactly two 
years, i. e., until June 20, 1863. This last-named day was a 



30 Governor Francis Harrison Pier pout 

remarkable one in the history of the Virginias. In Wheeling a 
vast multitude thronged the streets. Thousands of flags flut- 
tered in the breeze; the display of bunting was the most attrac-- 
tive even seen in the "Western Metropolis." A procession 
marched through the principal streets and then halted in front 
of Linsley Institute. It was filled with people; the streets were 
filled with men, women, and children, and the yards, windows, 
and roofs were filled with eager faces. A large platform had been 
erected in front of the institute, and thither the officers — 
officials of two state governments — were conducted as they 
arrived. Honorable Chester D. Hubbard called the multi- 
tude to order. Thirty-five tastefully attired and beautiful 
little girls, representing the American States, sang the Star- 
Spangled Banner. Reverend J. T. McLure addressed the 
Throne of Grace. Then came two governors — Francis H. 
PiERPONT, the head of the restored government, and Arthur 
I. Boreman, chief executive of a State just beginning to be. 
The first delivered a valedictory, the second an inaugural ad- 
dress. The sovereignty of the restored government of Vir- 
ginia was terminated on the soil of West Virginia. Governor 
PiEjRPONT retired with the restored government to Alexandria. 
Three cheers were given for West Virginia; the little girls sang 
E Pluribus Unum; the band played the Star-Spangled Banner, 
and thus terminated ° the ceremonies of the inauguration of 
West Virginia as a free and independent State — made possible 
by the existence of the restored government. 

THE RESTORED GOVERNMENT AT ALEXANDRIA. 

By an act of the 5th of February, 1863, it was provided that 
whenever the governor should deem it expedient to remove the 
seat of the restored government to Alexandria, or to any other 
place in the Commonwealth outside of the city of Wheeling, he 
should make proclamation thereof; and he was further author- 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 31 

ized to convene the general assembly at such place as he should 

select for the seat of government. Before doing this, he visited 

Washington City July 11, 1863, and was in Alexandria five days 

later. He resolved to make this the capital of the restored 

government. It was the old Belhaven of colonial days, first 

military headquarters of Colonel Washington in 1754; the scene 

of the landing of Braddock's ill-fated army of 1755; and was 

long a commercial emporium of Virginia. Here Governor 

PiERPONT occupied as a capital building that building that was 

formerly used by the Farmers Bank of Virginia, and herein 

were fixed all the executive offices. From here, on the 27th of 

August, Governor Pierpont issued a proclamation or address 

to the people of Virginia. In this he said: 

In establishing a seat of government at Alexandria, I hope to be brought 
into near contact with the people; to give personal attention, as far as pos- 
sible, to the rights of the citizens ; to assure all of my sincere determination 
to restore harmony and good will, as far as I can, between the civil and 
military authorities. In those portions of the State occupied by the mili- 
tary and in which civil government has not been established under the au- 
thority of the reorganized government of Virginia, the people will have to 
endure military rule, and to submit to the orders of the generals command- 
ing the military departments. In sections in which the restored govern- 
ment has been organized by the election of the various civil officers required 
by the laws of the State, it is expected that the said officers will discharge 
the duties of their respective offices in conformity with said laws. * * * 
I most earnestly invite the cooperation of all right-minded men and women 
in my ardent desire to secure peace and security to each county and neigh- 
borhood in the Commonwealth, assuring all that I have no other object in 
view than the present welfare and future prosperity of my native State. 

At this time the civil list of the restored government was as 
follows: Francis H. Pierpont, governor; Leopold P. C. 
Cowper, lieutenant-governor; Lucian A. Hagans, secretary of 
state; G. T. Smith, treasurer; Lewis W. Webb, auditor; Fred- 
erick E. Foster, adjutant-general; and Thomas R. Bowden, 
attorney-general. On the 23d day of May preceding (1863) 
Governor Pierpont had been reelected governor of Virginia for 
the full term of four years, beginning January i, 1864. At the 



32 Governor Francis H arrison Pier pout 

same time Leopold P. C. Cowper was elected lieutenant-governor 
and Thomas R. Bowden, attorney-general, for a similar term. 
Likewise the members of the general assembly — the second 
under the restored government — were chosen. These consisted 
of 6 senators and 13 members of the house of delegates. It con- 
vened in the City'Hall, December 7, 1863, when the counties of 
Accomac, Northampton, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudon, Norfolk, 
Princess Anne, and Norfolk City and Hampton district were rep- 
resented in the senate; and the counties of Accomac, Northamp- 
ton, Prince William, Norfolk, Alexandria, Loudon, Elizabeth 
City, Fairfax, and Norfolk city and Portsmouth city in the 
house of delegates. The 5th of February, 1864, this body 
elected Lucian A. Hagans secretary of state, Lewis W. Webb 
auditor of public accounts, and John J. Henshaw treasurer of 
the Commonwealth. At the opening of this session both 
branches received the message of Governor PierponT. In this 
he reviewed the history of the restored government while Wheel- 
ing was its capital city. Among other recommendations he 
strongly urged the calling of a convention to frame a new con- 
stitution for the Commonwealth. A bill known as the "Con- 
vention bill No. 9" was accordingly prepared jand enacted into 
law. In compliance therewith a constitutional convention 
assembled at Alexandria February 13, 1864, and adjourned sine 
die April 1 1 ensuing. The body consisted of 17 members, repre- 
senting the counties of Accomac, Northampton, Alexandria, 
Fairfax, Elizabeth city, Loudon, Norfolk, Norfolk city. Princess 
Anne, Warwick, Charles city. New Kent; and the cities of Nor- 
folk, Portsmouth, and Williamsburg. On the 7th of April a 
constitution was adopted by the convention, but it was not rati- 
fied by the people — was never submitted to them for ratifica- 
tion. The general assembly convened in extraordinary session 



Ceremonies ifi Statuary Hall ■ 33 



December 5, 1864; adjourned March 7, 1865. In his message 

to the body at this session Governor Pierpont said : 

The condition of the Commonwealth, as far as I can learn, is deplorable 
indeed. The fires of civil war have lighted nearly every neighborhood in 
three-fourths of it. 

Then he proceeded to detail the difficulty of reorganizing the 
counties then under federal control, because of the hostility of 
General Benjamin F. Butler, commandant of the Military Dis- 
trict of Virginia and North Carolina. 

A year had now passed away and the legislature proceeded to 
the election of an auditor, treasurer, and secretary of state. 
For the first, Lewis W. Webb was reelected; for the second, 
Warren W. Wing was chosen; and Lucian A. Hagans having 
resigned, Charles H. Lewis was elected to the office of secretary 
of state. 

On the 14th of April President Lincoln was assassinated. The 
next day Major-General C. C. Augur, commanding the Depart- 
ment of Washington, offered a reward of $10,000 for the arrest 
of the assassin. April 21 Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, 
offered an additional reward of $100,000. On the same day 
Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, offered a reward of $10,000, 
and on the 23d Governgr PiERPONT added to the foregoing a 
reward of $2,000 for the arrest of J. Wilkes Booth or any of his 
accomplices. Intense excitement prevailed at Alexandria, as 
elsewhere throughout the country; and there, on the i8th of 
April, that on which the deceased President was buried, all the 
bells in the old city tolled from 12 until 5 o'clock p. m. 

THE RESTORED GOVERNMENT AT RICHMOND. 

Richmond had fallen, and much of it lay in ashes. The old 
confederate states government had ceased to exist. At a cabi- 
net meeting, on the 24th of April, it was decided that the restored 

49963° — 10 3 



34 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

government, whose capital was at Alexandria, on the Potomac, 
should be removed to Richmond. In accordance with this deci- 
sion President Johnson issued an executive order to Governor 
Pierpont, directing a change in the place of the restored govern- 
ment. With its removal its personnel was again almost entirely 
changed. As before stated, Lucian A. Hagans, secretary of the 
Commonwealth, had resigned and returned to his home in Pres- 
ton County, West Virginia, and his successor was Charles H. 
Lewis, from Rockingham County, Virginia, a brother of John F. 
Lewis, afterwards United States Senator from that State. The 
auditor of public accounts, Lewis W. Webb, had been succeeded 
by William F. Taylor, and Francis J. Smith was now treasurer 
of the Commonwealth instead of Warren W. Wing, who had 
served in that capacity in the preceding year at Alexandria. 
David H. Strother, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, author of the 
Virginia Cannon, and who has arisen to the rank of brigadier- 
general in the Federal Army, was adjutant-general. 

On the morning of May 25 Governor Pierpont, with the gov- 
ernment officials, left Alexandria on the United States mail 
steamer Diamond for Richmond, but on account of accidents 
did not arrive at its destination until the following day. Upon 
his arrival in Richmond he was met by a reception committee 
with Charles Palmer at its head, who greeted the executive as 
follows : 

Governor Pierpont, it affords me pleasure, as the organ of my fellow- 
citizens, to offer you their cordial welcome upon your arrival as our chief 
magistrate to the capital of this ancient Commonwealth, the Mother of 
States and Statesmen, and to assure you that your coming is greeted with 
pleasure and hope, believing that you will still continue your efforts, in con- 
nection with our national authorities, to restore Virginia to that quiet and 
peace in the sisterhood of States of our glorious Union, which she now so 
earnestly desires, after the evils of a cruel war just terminated. Let me, 
in their name, ask your attention to the importance of at once taking such 
means as will revive their industrial interest and by a speedy restoration of 
civil law restore the long-wished-for period of quiet and peace, and let us 
all, both people and rulers, in a spirit of mutual forgiveness and forbearance 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 35 

toward each other, wipe out all asperities of the past, and with united hearts 
and hands emulate each other in the effort to replace Virginia in that bright 
galaxy of States first and foremost. 

Governor PierponT responded briefly and appropriately. 
Then he and his suite were conducted to the carriages in waiting 
for them. The procession moved to the governor's mansion. 
Thousands lined the route and a battery on Capitol Square fired 
15 guns as the cortege approached. The executive mansion s 
was occupied by many invited guests. Ladies and gentlemen 
entered the portal and were cordially greeted. Some one pro- 
posed three cheers for Governor Pierpont and these were lustily 
given. Then Francis J. Smith, of the city of Richmond, stepped 
forward and delivered an eloquent address. He said, in part: 

A little more than four years ago the bonds of friendship, the social and 
commercial relations between the North and the South were ruthlessly 
severed — consequences are familiar to us all. If I were to attempt to draw 
a picture of them the colors would be red and black; red, as typical of the 
blood spilled, as the black would be of the mourning consequent thereto; 
but I turn away from the gloomy retrospect, not with sadness, to look to the 
future, which is full of hope * * * if ^g can not forget, let us endeavor 
to forgive, that angry passions may be pushed into silence. At early morn 
behold the Stars and Stripes gracefully waving from the capitol of this 
ancient Commonwealth; that banner upheld, the enjoyment of life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness will ever be secure. * * * Let me speak 
now for the ladies. They are ready to greet you. They all join us in 
extending to you a hearty and cordial welcome. 

Governor PiERPONT delivered a splendid response. In part 

he said : 

Mr. Smith and Gentlemen: I should not do justice to my own feelings 
were I to say that I was not moved by the remarks you have just made 
and by the circumstances with which we are surrounded. * * * As far 
as I am personally concerned, the position I have occupied for the past four 
years has been one entirely unsought by me. At the beginning I had no 
more idea of occupying the position I now do than I had of doing any other 
strange thing which I never expected to do. Providential circumstances 
have combined to place me in this position. Thousands of times I have 
felt that I would rather be in any other position than this. But as my 
fellow-citizens asked me to serve them, I could not do otherwise than accept 



2,6 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpo7it 

the trust. But I have acted sincerely with a view to the future. * * * 
Our Nation has been divided, contending with the most powerful armies in 
the South, and yet we are able to point out to the nations and say. Keep 
your positions, or you shall keep them, and to-day we present the greatest 
nation, the most magnificent people known among the nations of the earth. 
I come among you pledging all the efforts and energies of my heart and 
mind to the building up of this great State, founded by those great states- 
men to whom you h'ave referred. 

Governor Pierpont hastened to make good his promise and 
immediately entered upon a poHcy of conciHation and restora- 
tion, which made his name a prominent one in the annals of 
Virginia. He at once called around him the foremost men of the 
old Commonwealth — men who had followed her fortunes through 
the civil war. Among these were such as John B. Baldwin, 
Hugh W. Sheffey, M. W. Harmon, and William M. Tate. Thus 
he learned of conditions throughout Virginia. Destruction and 
desolation were everywhere in evidence and a large part of the 
capital city was lying in ashes. He was told of the destitution 
in the hospitals for the insane at Williamsburg and Staunton, 
and of the nakedness and almost starvation present in the 
schools for the deaf, the blind, and the dumb at the latter places. 

The treasurer of the restored government had taken with him 
to Richmond the sum of $98,000, and Governor Pierpont now 
sent his adjutant-general, David H. Strother, in person, to all 
the counties that had been represented in the general assembly 
at Alexandria and summoned the representatives to Richmond. 
They came — 5 senators and 1 1 delegates — and they met in the 
governor's reception room. There he explained to them the 
conditions existing throughout the old Commonwealth, and that 
they alone could change them by legislation; and that if they 
would do this he would convene them in extraordinary session. 
They assembled, and the session began Monday, June 19, 1865, 
and ended Friday — the 23d — ensuing, covering a period of but 
five days. This body in this period removed the disability to 
vote, and by resolution the next general assembly was given 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 37 

continued authority to remove the disqualifications to hold 
office. With the funds appropriated Governor PierponT reha- 
bilitated the western lunatic asylum, the institution for the 
deaf, dumb, and blind, and the eastern lunatic asylum, all of 
which institutions were in extreme destitution. 

Doctor R. A. Brock, the distinguished historian of Virginia, 
himself an ex-confederate soldier, writing in 1882 of the admin- 
istration of Governor Pierpont at Richmond, says: 

Another example is now presented of an honorable and successful career 
attendant upon probity and persistent purpose. He also found, upon his 
arrival in Richmond, the United States marshal busy libeling the property 
of the late confederates for confiscation. A few days afterwards President 
Johnson issued a proclamation confiscating the estates of certain classes 
unless pardoned. It was stipulated that all petitions should be recom- 
mended by the governor. He soon perceived that the President was 
temporizing, and was led to apprehend that the "pardon mill" was a 
farce at least if no worse. He accordingly determined to recommend all 
petitions offered him. He next protested to the Attorney-General against 
the further iniquity of libeling property which it was never designed to 
confiscate, and which only entailed grievous expense on the owners. His 
protest was effective. He next interposed for the suppression of the class 
of pardon-broker harpies who obstructed the due course of the executive 
clemency as provided. He refused to recommend any petition which 
would pass into the hands of a broker, and this disarmed these rapacious 
thieves. He next interposed for the relief of citizens who were under civil 
indictment for offenses which were within the province of military authority 
and recommended leniency and conciliation to the courts. 

He also appointed, upon the recommendation of those duly 
interested, efficient regents for the University of Virginia and 
for the Virginia Military Institute without reference to party 
affiliation. He had been the chief executive — governor of 
Virginia — seven years, six months, and twenty-six days; two 
years at Wheeling; one year, nine months, and ten days at 
Alexandria; and three years, nine months, and sixteen days at 
Richmond. 

PiERPONT was too earnest and single minded to give himself 
to self-seeking. He was never a politician. He accepted the 
post as the head of the restored government and the duties 



38 Governor Francis H arrisoh Pierpont 

thereto attaching, surrounded with danger, and rather shunned 
than sought by his contemporaries; and having served the 
public ends in this most difficult position, in a most trying time, 
without trying to promote his own personal fortunes, he went 
back when his task was finished to his modest home at Fairmont, 
West Virginia, by the Monongahela, and sat down again to 
earn his living as a practicing attorney. There he lived to a 
ripe old age, dying in his eighty-fifth year, and is buried in 
Woodlawn Cemetery at that place. He continued in office as 
governor beyond the expiration of his term — January i, 1868 — 
serving until April 16 ensuing, when he was succeeded by 
General Henry H. Wells, appointed provisional governor by 
General John M. Schofield, commanding the Military Depart- 
ment of Virginia. 

The most remarkable chapter in the history of the govern- 
ment of the individual American States is that which treats in 
detail of the restored government of Virginia from 1861 to 1868. 
It has been called a "reorganized government" and a "pro- 
visional government," but it was neither. The people of north- 
western Virginia foreswore their allegiance to the old Virginia 
state government, but upon its ruins, as it were, they restored 
the exact form, giving a strict adherence to its constitutional 
and statutory forms of law. There was reorganization, but not 
change. They abstained from the introduction of any new 
elements of revolution, and they avoided as far as possible all 
new and original theories of government. It was an adherence 
to the old constitutional standard of principle, and to the tra- 
ditional habits and thoughts of the people — a strict adherence 
"to the old model" — the Virginia government of former days. 
Hence it was a restoration of a governmental form well known 
to the people — a "restored government" — one designed for the 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 39 

whole State, and not for a part of it. Its existence made 

possible the formation of the State of West Virginia. 

And right here will you permit me to repeat the words of 

James G. Blaine, one of the greatest and best statesmen this 

country has ever produced! 

West Virginia indeed got only what was equitably due and what she 
was entitled to claim by the natural right of self-government. The war 
brought good fortune to her as conspicuously as it brought ill fortune to 
the older State from which she was wrenched. West Virginia is to be 
congratulated, and her creditable career and untiring enterprise since she 
assumed the responsibility of self-government show how well she deserved 
the boon. 

It was the boast of Governor Pierpont down to the end of 
his life that the restored government adhered strictly to the 
constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia through- 
out all the period of its existence, save in one instance, that of 
reducing the quorum in the general assembly, which was done 
at Wheeling in July, 1861. He was a benefactor of Virginia, 
assisting her, as he did, to rise, phoenix-like, from her own ashes. 
Had there been no restored government, there would have been 
no State of West Virginia. From both States he merits the 
highest honor, and in recognition of this fact West Virginia 
has placed his statue in Statuary Hall of the National Capitol, 
that he may be represented among those who have acted wisest 
and best for their respective States. 

It may be said of him as was said of another great American 
citizen : 

He was a man of simple and child-like nature, as all really great men 
are, and of warm and generous sympathies. * * * There was nothing 
cramped or small about the man. He was great in the broadest, best, 
and completest sense of the word — a full, well-balanced, well-rounded 
character, a nobleman of nature, and a nobleman of education, reason, 
and action. 

The quality in him which should be held up for the admiration 
and example of this and future generations is his complete and 
entire devotion to dutv. 



40 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Mr. WooDYARD. By request, Miss Siviter will recite a poem 
appropriate to this occasion — Miss Siviter. 

Miss Siviter recited the following poem: 

You are standing midst the mighty in the Great White Hall of Fame; 
On the Nation's list of heroes they have written high your name; 
And the powers and-princes pass you and they give you meed of praise, 
But 'twas Freedom you were wooing, and not Fame, in those dark days. 

Filled with manhood's high ideals, by a slave-block you stood near; 
Watched the virgin crouching on it, saw her trembling, felt her fear; 
And your spirit rose within you, as one lead the maid away, 
And you gave yourself to Freedom — life and soul and strength — that day. 

When the loud alarm of battle flung a challenge to the North, 
Home and childish hands clung to you, but your country called you forth 
On the strong God lays the burden when He makes a people free, 
And on hearts that are most tender doth He write His stern decree. 

In the shout and din of battle, she was born, the brave, free State; 
Humble men stood sponsor for her, but their every deed was great — 
West Virginia, child of Freedom, lift your happy head on high; 
Truth and Justice are your birthright; you were born to Liberty. 

But it must be, up in heaven, that the holy angels know 

Of the struggles and the triumphs of those toiling here below; 

And men's hearts were moved to action ; so they placed you. Statesman, there 

That the world might know and fear it, what is wrought by work and prayer. 

Mr. WooDYARD. Honorable John W. Mason, of Fairmont, 
West Virginia, judge of the circuit court of the fourteenth cir- 
cuit of West Virginia, and long a neighbor and warm friend of 
Governor PierponT, had accepted an invitation to deliver an 
historical and personal address on this occasion, but sudden and 
dangerous illness confines him to his home. 

We are fortunate in having with us Honorable Alston Gordon 
Dayton, judge of the district court of the United States for the 
northern district of West Virginia, of Philippi, long an esteemed 
and intimate friend of the man whose memory we honor this 
day, who will speak upon the public services and the life and 
character of Governor PierponT. 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 41 



Address of Honorable Alston Gordon Dayton 
The primary purpose of this Statuary Hall is to perpetuate 
the memory of those two men in each State who had most to do 
in her creation or earlier upbuilding. How true West Virginia 
has been to this purpose in presenting this statue here to-day, 
as also upon how firm a foundation rests the right of Francis 
Harrison PierponT's name and menfory to this preeminent 
recognition, needs but a just and impartial review of those 
stirring times, when amid the thunders of war and carnage, 
West Virginia was added to the sisterhood of States. 

After the lapse of forty-seven years since her admission, 
when the mistake of seeking to divide this nation has been 
universally recognized; when all men now know that we could 
not have lived and prospered "half slave and half free;" when 
another war fought in behalf of humanity and freedom has 
welded together our people and made us one in deed and truth 
as well as name, we can review this war-time birth of West 
Virginia without passion and without prejudice. It is but sim- 
ple justice to the State, and to the memory of her patriots who 
risked their lives and all that she might become a State, that 
the widespread impressions entertained that her entrance into 
the Union was a trick of political manipulation, to be condoned 
by some as a political necessity, but nevertheless a proceeding 
that was of doubtful legality, should be dissipated by a truer 
knowledge of the facts. It is my purpose to-day, as briefly as I 
may, and in no spirit of controversy, to estabhsh two proposi- 
tions by a simple recital of facts. 

First. That no State in the Union had a clearer title resting 
upon the Constitution and laws of the United States than had 
West Virginia with which to come and seek her right to be 
recognized as a State. Mark, I say legal right and clear title. 
Touching the Nation's reserved right of discretion to admit or 



42 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

refuse and the wisdom of its favorable exercise thereof at the 
time, there can now be no longer question. Therefore, remem- 
bering the dangers, the losses of life and property endured, the 
sublime self-sacrifices made, and the loyalty and patriotism 
displayed, by the futhers who achieved our independent state- 
hood, I go a step farther and say no State has a prouder history, 
and no brighter star appears in the azure field of our Nation's 
flag than the one placed there to mark the birth of the war-born 
child. 

Second. With a profound admiration for each of those hun- 
dreds of men, who, in the storm and whirlwind of secession 
stood forth like giant rocks to breast and break its force; a 
body of men that, for courage and patriotic devotion to the 
cause they espoused, could not be excelled in the world's history, 
the Willeys, Campbells, Boremans, Lambs, Carliles, McGrews, 
Hubbards, Stuarts, Tarrs, Browns, Jacksons, Patricks, Halls, 
Dents, Goffs, Harrisons, Stevensons, Daytons, Melvins, Mar- 
shalls, Atkinsons, Davises, Flemings, Bowens, Shuttleworths, 
Withers, Lightburns, Polsleys, Boughners, Garrisons, Fitches, 
Vandervorts, Caldwells, McClures, Logans, Wheats, Nortons, 
Hornbrooks, McPorters, Hagans, Johnsons, Vroomans, Bukeys, 
Mosses — how many, many more — who could not, would not live 
under any other flag but Old Glory — I say with profound admira- 
tion, yes, a deep veneration for them all, it seems to me that 
among them must stand out and be recognized as preeminent 
Francis Harrison Pierpont, and this because in the darkest 
hour and gloom, when others were ready to despair, he thought 
out the right, the true, the legal way to save Virginia west of 
the Alleghenies to the Union, and at the same time give that 
territory independent statehood. 

To demonstrate these two propositions we must not forget 
that Virginia's treatment of her people west of the Alleghenies 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 43 

had never been either just or generous. Her dominating civi- 
lization centered itself in the lands draining to the sea and not 
those flowing to the Gulf. This eastern civilization, springing 
from the cavalier class of England, living in broad plantations 
along the sea and its contributory waters, maintained by slave 
labor and educated to refinement and luxury, had little sym- 
pathy for, or patience with, those plain, hardy, middle-class 
people who came from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other Eastern 
and Western States into the wilderness and mountain fast- 
nesses to hew out homes with their own hands, for they were 
too poor to buy slaves and too thrifty to tolerate them. It 
was only when the troublesome question of providing revenue 
came up, or when the lust to hold vast boundaries of land for 
future speculative purpose (a lust bred in the bone of these 
English Raleighs) was especially indulged, that they turned 
their minds to the wilderness in the West; and then they were 
prepared to act in accord with their own enlightened interest. 
One of the results was the establishment of a land office, 
where these lands west of the Alleghenies were sold at 2 cents 
an acre. Anyone could buy as much as he pleased and where 
he pleased within the territory. All he had to do was to sur- 
vey a line or two, mark a few trees, and lay down by protrac- 
tion on a map as many thousand acres as his means would 
allow him to pay for into the treasury of the State, present 
this "survey," and secure a patent. The State would not 
undertake to warrant and protect its titles. Every one could 
take as many as he cared to pay for, but he must take at the 
peril of one or of forty having taken up the same land before. 
Thus revenue was obtained, to the relief of the planters, and 
their lust for land was gratified at the same time. How de- 
plorable this policy was has been demonstrated, not only by 
the vast litigation produced; not alone by the great hardships 
incurred by the settlers themselves in these mountains who 



44 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



could never feel secure in their homes because they knew not 
what day an older title would oust them, but by the greater 
fact that by this policy lands, timbers, oils, gas, and othei 
mineral resources were dissipated which, if conserved, would 
have been sufficient to have paid all the expenses of the State 
for a thousand yfears. Another result came whereby the slaves 
of the eastern planter were by law assessed and taxed upon 
one basis, while the cattle and other personal property of the 
western mountaineer were assessed and taxed upon another 
and several times greater one. Still another result was, that 
in order to vest control of the State for all time in the slave- 
holding planters, the basis of legislative representation was 
fixed, not alone upon the free white voting population, but 
that of the slave one as well. 

This kind of legislation did not pass without protest. Such 
protest began as early as 1816; became emphatic in the Staun- 
ton convention of 1825; was carried by PhiHp Doddridge, 
aided by Chief Justice Marshall, into the convention of 
1829-30, and, failing there, came down to the convention 
of 1850-51, where some concessions were obtained only under 
threat on the part of the western members to withdraw. 

Was it to be wondered at that, after this treatment of a half 
century, when it was then proposed to, and demanded of, these 
mountaineers that they should join these seaside planters in 
recreancy to the State, its memories, its traditions, its Wash- 
ingtons, Jeffersons, Marshalls, Monroes; should tear down the 
flag ; rend in twain the Constitution and make naught the Union 
fought and died for by their fathers — that these sturdy, brave, 
loyal sons of the hills should determine that at last had come 
the hour when they must write for themselves a new and effec- 
tive declaration of independence ? 

What a thrilling, significant fact it was that, on that memor- 
able 17th of June, 1861, when, in convention assembled, their 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 45 

representatives, without dissenting voice, passed their declara- 
tion to restore the government of Virginia under the Union and 
the Union's flag, that CarUle could spring to his feet and say: 

We have 56 votes recorded in favor of our declaration, and we may 
remember that there were just 56 signers to the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. 

It is said that then these strong men w^ept as only strong men 
can. But I anticipate a little. Webster, so far back as 1851, 
had plainly warned Virginia that in the very day in which she 
should make the attempt of secession her western counties would 
arise in their strength and throw off her authority and form an 
independent State. The wise men of Virginia never doubted 
the fulfillment of this prophesy, nor did they doubt, if the clash 
of arms did come, that it would be upon Virginia soil. Men like 
Lee and Jackson were at heart bitterly opposed to disunion; the 
majority of sentiment in the State was opposed to it. So clearly 
is this true that we need but call attention to the fact that the 
State in the election of i860 had reversed its policy, refused to 
follow the lead of Democracy, and voted with Kentucky and 
Tennessee for Bell, the candidate of the conservative union or 
American Party. But when, on December 17, i860. South Caro- 
lina declared to secede and other Southern States followed her 
lead, John Letcher, governor of Virginia, became a conspicuous 
illustration of how dangerous a thing it is to have a weak man in 
place where a strong man is needed. Letcher at heart did not 
want secession. On the contrary, he hoped that the States 
would get together somehow in convention and adjust things, 
either by recognizing the necessity of slavery or by repealing the 
restrictive laws against its extension and thus allow the sore still 
to fester. He wanted to wait and hope against hope. At the 
same time there existed already in Virginia a body of as deter- 
mined, united, and, I may say, of as brilliant and talented men 
as seldom ever before banded together in a bad cause. They 



46 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

persuaded Letcher that he ought not to bear responsibility alone; 
that the legislature, representing the people, was always the 
body that should share responsibility with the executive, and 
that it was for these representatives to determine Virginia's 
course of action. Letcher yielded and called an extra session of 
the legislature. 'This body was also in reality opposed to seces- 
sion. This did not for a moment daunt this determined band of 
conspirators, who knew each other, had but one purpose and 
but one fixed and predetermined plan of action. After a week's 
stormy session they had cajoled, browbeaten, persuaded, and 
terrorized this legislative body into the idea of shirking respon- 
sibility too under the specious plea that its representation was 
not broad enough of the people; that a convention should be 
called fresh from the people for the express purpose of dealing 
with the problems. 

Never before had a convention in Virginia been called to deal 
with the organic law but by express vote of the people before- 
hand obtained. That mattered not to these determined men. 
They knew conventions could be overawed, driven, controlled. 
The people could not. To proceed regularly and submit to a 
vote the calling of a convention meant the rock upon which their 
revolutionary scheme would go to pieces. The convention met 
and still it was a Union one, but its Union majority was divided, 
leaderless, and many attached conditions to their loyalty. On 
the other hand, the minority had but one object, one purpose, 
one plan, and a leader in the person of Henry A. Wise, as adroit, 
ready, brilliant, and daring as ever led a mob. This minority 
hypocritically, but plausibly, plead for fairness and full consid- 
eration of the claims for union and for secession. It secured a 
hearing for three of the ablest and most eloquent representatives 
of the confederacy, with which it was in constant communica- 
tion the while and with which it was in full accord. These men 
pictured the coming glory of the new republic of the South ; of 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 47 

its future capture of the manufacturing industries of New Eng- 
land for the South, where cotton would be king; of the com- 
mercial prosperity that would come to the South's Atlantic sea- 
board from over the seas. In brief, it was the old temptation. 
The convention was taken to the top of the high mountain and 
shown the wealth and gold of the world, and all was promised if 
Virginia would yield and bow down. But still she would not. 
Then more drastic measures were resorted to, such as taunts and 
insults. The Union members were called submissionists, pol- 
troons, and cowards, for, steadily and continuously but quietly, 
in accord with a well conceived and executed plan, the hot- 
heads, determined on secession, were being drawn into Rich- 
mond; mobs were forming; incendiary addresses were being 
indulged, while conservative, law-abiding people stayed at home. 
It is the old story of conspiracy. When strong enough, it 
threw off the mask; the shot on Sumter was fired; Lincoln's 
call for troops came; and the ordinance of secession, in the fear- 
ful excitement following, when the streets of Richmond were 
filled with mobs, was reported one day and passed behind barred 
doors the next by a vote of 88 yeas to 55 nays. The counties 
west of the Alleghenies furnished 11 votes for and 32 against it. 
Then a scene seldom equaled was enacted. The Stars and 
Stripes were hauled down, tied to a horse's tail, and dragged 
through the streets amid the derisive shouts of thousands. The 
delegates from the west who had voted against the ordinance 
had speedily to flee for their lives. This was particularly so of 
Francis H. Pie;rpont and Waitman T. Willey, who had "cried 
out and spared not" in the convention in opposition to the dire 
heresy and wrong. When they brought back the news to the 
mountains the people stood and listened dumbfounded. They 
had not dreamed of such an outcome as this. What did 
it mean? They gathered in knots on the streets and corners 
in the towns and villages, at the country stores and crossroads, 



48 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

and with bated breaths whispered to each other, "What does it 
mean, what does it mean?" By the log fires the old men sat 
and trembled, seeking to foretell the future. Young men began 
to get down the old guns; mothers went into quiet corners alone 
to weep. Everywhere talk of war commenced — war in the 
mountains, war 'at their very doors. Gloom and dread and a 
sense of impending parting and death universally prevailed. 
But not long did these men whom God, "by the touch of the 
mountain sod," had made hardy and strong, brave and true, 
remain in helpless impotency. The reaction came; Instead of 
asking "What does it mean?" they began to ask each other 
why they had been so betrayed, why they should be swept into 
disunion and dishonor against their wills? Why should they 
tear down the flag they loved, be treacherous to the Union for 
which every heart throb beat true? Their mountain homes 
were humble, but they held their altars and their household 
gods, and why should they be menaced, devastated, destroyed 
because the seashore planters willed it so ? And the tide of 
righteous wrath and indignation rose higher daily as they saw 
the arrogant acts and heard the insolent taunts of the minority 
around them who approved the southern cause to the effect that 
they were helpless, had been trapped, and must go with the 
State and not the Nation. They saw Confederate companies 
forming to draw them farther and farther into the maelstrom. 
Their anger rose to fever heat. They would not bear it — they 
would stand by their faith ; they would protest ; they would have 
another convention that should repudiate the ordinance; they 
would secede from the seceding Virginia, form a new State of 
their own, to be named after the pure waters of the Kanawha, 
and for this State in the Union, loyal to the Stars and Stripes, 
they would fight and die if necessity required it. This move- 
ment for a new State originated in a mass convention that came 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 49 

together, almost without notice, in Clarksburg, the home of the 
Gofifs, the Harrisons, the Davises, and of Carlile. This meeting 
issued the call for the first Wheeling convention. This call was 
promptly responded to and immediate steps were taken to see 
that representatives from all the counties should be present. 
The Intelligencer, edited and controlled by A. W. Campbell — 
as strong, brave, true, and patriotic as any man living at the 
time — was trumpeting the call everywhere, and the mountaineers 
were burning to answer it. It is absolutely impossible for any- 
one who did not live through it all to conceive how fiercely, in 
this battle between the forces, the contest was waged for the 
upper hand. 

It was a sad rending in thousands of homes of the most sacred 
ties. Fathers and brothers divided in opinion and took sides 
against each other. It sent Stonewall Jackson to the southern 
camp to die, and it sent his sister as a ministering angel to the 
Union wounded and dying. 

The world will never know under what conditions some of 
those delegates to that convention were elected and what dangers 
they incurred in attending. As a single instance, it is unre- 
corded history that at Philippi, where the first battle of the war 
was to be fought, a confederate company had already been 
formed and a Confederate flag floated from the court-house 
cupola. It was the open threat that no Union meeting should 
be held there and no man should go from there to that conven- 
tion. A meeting was held by five men in a shop at midnight, by 
a lantern's light behind blinded doors and windows, a delegate 
was selected who, when came the time to go, mounted his horse 
at midnight and at full speed thundered through the guarded 
bridge determined to go or die. When he returned some days 
after it was only to flee for his life, with a price placed upon his 
head. 

49963° — 10 4 



50 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

That was a short but memorable convention that met in 
Wheeling on Monday, May 13, 1861. It was composed of 422 of 
the strongest men the counties west of the Alleghenies could 
produce, men whose names borne to-day by their sons are house- 
hold words in West Virginia, the symbols of successful and honor- 
able lives, examples of virile manhood in the best sense of the 
word. And a more loyal, partiotic body of men never gathered 
together on American soil. They lost no time in jumping into 
the midst of things. They had three sessions for the first two 
days and four upon the last one. It was an hour big in destiny 
for the mountains; at the same time, it was an hour of eminent 
peril. These men, strong, brave, and patriotic as they were, 
were also restless, impatient. The fire of indignation raged 
fiercely within them and the desire for immediate decisive action 
was almost irresistible. They knew exactly what they wanted 
to do. They knew that nothing short of making known their 
undying loyalty tx) the Union and at the same time securing a 
separation from the eastern planters would satisfy. 

They knew well the work to be done, but they did not then 
know the orderly way, the right way, the legal way to do it; the 
procedure that could meet the requirements of the Constitution 
and laws of the United States, secure the approval of Congress, 
and satisfy the logical analysis of time and history. It did not 
take long to demonstrate that Carlile was the popular leader. 
He, in many respects, was the counterpart of Henry A. Wise. 
Brilliant, dashing, magnetic, eloquent, but erratic, he was for 
action, action at once, now! He wanted to form a State there 
and then by sheer revolutionary methods, and he made a speech 
in favor of his plan that swept all before it. The emotion in the 
hearts of those strong men burst forth ; they shouted, they wept, 
and apparently there was but one sentiment, one conclusion, and 
one result — the adoption of Carlile's plan. It was the crisis. 
Had Carlile's plan been adopted West Virginia would not be a 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 51 

State to-day. It required brave hearts and clear heads, how- 
ever, to stem the tide! God be praised, they were there. Out 
from the ranks onto the platform came first Waitman T. Willey 
and then Francis H. Pie;rpont. Uke the giants in intellect, in 
wisdom, in eloquence that they were, they spoke as few men in 
such circumstances could have spoken, for self-control, for 
patience, for orderly procedure, for legal methods, and they pre- 
vailed. The storm ceased. Carlile withdrew his resolution, 
the convention adopted a series of thirteen "resolves" declaring 
the ordinance of secession void; the schedule attached thereto 
suspending election of Members to the National Congress an 
usurpation of power not to be submitted to; the agreement and 
ordinance of the Richmond convention turning over to the con- 
federacy the military forces of the State to be subversive of the 
rights of the people; calling on the people to vote against the 
ordinance of secession; to vote for Members of the National 
Congress in their districts ; for loyal men for state senators and 
delegates; condemning the action of the Richmond convention 
in turning over the State to the confederacy as unconstitutional 
and against her material interests; providing, in case the ordi- 
nance of secession should be ratified by vote, for a general con- 
vention to meet on June 1 1 following, fixing the methods of its 
selection and basis of representation, and for a committee to 
attend to the details thereof ; declaring for peaceable separation 
from eastern Virginia; their determination to support the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States, and directing its central 
committee to prepare an address to the people of the State. This 
central committee consisted of John S. Carlile, James S. Wheat, 
Chester D. Hubbard, Francis H. Pierpont, Campbell Tarr, 
George R. Latham, Andrew Wilson, S. H. Woodyard, and James 
W. Paxton. The men of this day engaged in this struggle did 
not have time to think of their future reputations and cared 
little or nothing for historical credit for their writings or deeds; 



52 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



therefore we do not know which one of these men wrote the 
address to the people which followed, but we do know that it 
stands as a model of its kind. And we do know that Francis 
H. Pierpont, as a member of this committee, of this convention, 
who had been expelled from the Richmond one because he was 
loyal and true, Went home to think out, find out the right, the 
true, the legal way to solve the problem of how Virginia should 
be saved to the Union and West Virginia should be formed and 
admitted to statehood. It is related by so good an authority as 
A. W. Campbell that, to do this, he took the Constitution of the 
United States and sat himself down to study it line for line, word 
for word; that when he came to section 4 of Article IV pro- 
viding — 

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican 
Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and 
on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legisla- 
ture cannot be convened), against domestic violence. 

like a flash the whole solution was his, and he sprang to his feet 

and fairly shouted, "I have it, I have it." 

And how simple the solution was! How fully that greatest 

instrument of organic law, promulgated under the name of 

Virginia's deputy, and the Nation's father, George Washington, 

on the 17th day of September, 1787, had provided for this crisis 

when some of Virginia's sons, like Washington in the time agone, 

burned to save the Nation, while other of her sons were seeking 

to destroy it ! 

. The right of secession could not be recognized for a moment. 

The fallacy of that logic had been thrashed out and exposed by 

years of previous debate. The Federal Constitution was the 

supreme law of the land. The Union was not a league, not a 

confederation, but a Nation. Virginia was an integral part of 

it, and as such was entitled to maintain its state government 

and enforce its state laws under national protection. If part of 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 53 

Virginia's citizens desired to embark in rebellion and lawless 
conflict with the supreme law of the land, those who stood for 
law and the Constitution surely did not have to follow. They 
had but to stand fast, and the Federal Government was bound 
to afford them protection. If the officers of the State, "clothed 
with a little brief authority," should abandon their posts of duty 
and refuse to act, refuse to enforce the laws, the laws provided 
that the vacancies thereby created should be filled and govern- 
ment should not fail. It was all as clear as the noonday sun. 
Carlile had simply begun at the wrong end first, had the 
cart before the horse. Virginia was still in the Union, only her 
officers had abandoned their trust, and, more, Virginia was 
entitled to her Representatives in Congress, to elect her legisla- 
tive agents, to enact laws for her, and see to their enforcement, 
and, if a legislature of Virginia thus elected under the law saw 
fit to grant permission to the counties west of the Alleghenies to 
form a new State, then the requirement of the Federal Consti- 
tution would be fully and legally m.et. If the counties east of 
the Alleghenies did not want this permission given, let them 
quit their rebellion, their foolish design to secede, elect their 
accredited membership to the legislatures, and vote the propo- 
sition down. They might be sure if they sulked and stayed 
away that the other counties would vote its adoption, but such 
result would be solely their fault. Time will not permit more 
than a mere mention of succeeding events. It was plain sailing 
after PiErpont had found the way. The members of this first 
Wheeling convention went home to speak, vote, and work 
against the ratification of the ordinance of secession. In the 
last hour of its session Willey, racked with physical pain, was 
called upon and spoke burning words of cheer and encourage- 
ment. With clear voice and flashing eye he proclaimed : 

God has blessed this country. God has blessed all the men who have 
loved this Union. His hand has been manifested in all our history. He 



54 G overnor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

stood by Washington, its great founder and defender. He stood by our 
forefathers in the establishment of this Government, and by working out 
our glorious destiny thus far in the space of less than three-quarters of a 
century. God has made the American people the greatest on the earth; 
and I firmly believe in the hidden councils of His mysterious providence 
there is a glorious destiny awaiting an united American people still. 

And further on, vi/^hen exhorting them to go home and defeat the 

ordinance of secession, "pile up our glorious hills upon it; bury 

it deep, so that it will never make its appearance among us 

again," the memory of PiKRPONT's indomitable, fearless, tireless 

energy must have flashed through his mind, for he said that for 

himself he M^anted to go into Marion County, v^^anted to 

Help Hall a little. Want to take Frank Pierpont along over there, too. 
They have threatened to hang him out there, and I am sure if he gets 
strung up first he will break the rope and I will escape. 

What a true touch, humorous though it be, of appreciation of 

the character, sincerity, and bravery of PiKRPONT! He never 

tired, he never stopped thinking, writing, speaking against 

secession and for the Union from this time on until the struggle 

ended. He campaigned for lyincoln in 1864 in several States. 

At times he faced cheering thousands, at times frenzied mobs. 

It mattered not. The old Puritan blood that coursed in his 

veins was up. He minced not his words, he spared not! 

Threatened to hang him ? Yes, a hundred times, and a hundred 

times they would have hanged him if they could, and he — well, 

if he could have broken the ropes and got his breath again he 

would have finished the speech he was at the time making for 

the Union. 

He heeded not reviling tones 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Though cursed and scorn'd and bruised with stones 

******* 

He seemed to hear a Heavenly Friend 

And thro' thick veils to apprehend 

A labor working to an end. 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 55 



The ratification of the ordinance of secession, no matter 
how hard the mountaineers might strive to defeat it, was a 
foregone conclusion. Wise and his coadjutors had seen to 
that by having the convention turn over to the confederacy 
the military forces and the election machinery and virtually 
the state government. The vote was a useless form. It did 
not fail, however, to show that the counties west were over- 
whelmingly opposed to it. Then came the second Wheeling 
convention, the carrying out of PiUrpont's plan to restore 
the government of Virginia, his unanimous selection by the 
convention, and subsequently by vote of the people, to its 
head as governor and its full recognition as legal by the Na- 
tional Government, the election of Representatives in Congress 
and of a Virginia legislature that duly and legally enacted the 
law granting permission for the formation of West Virginia, 
which the Constitution of the Union required; the removal of 
the capitol of this restored and legal government of Virginia 
from Wheeling to Alexandria and finally back to Richmond; 
the convention that met and framed the constitution of West 
Virginia; its ratification by the people; the long struggle in 
Congress where Willey, representing the restored government, 
fought so strongly against such odds, so valiantly and so suc- 
cessfully as to make his name immortal in our hearts. And, 
too, in passing, remember how dear bluff old Ben Wade, of 
Ohio, helped. And then PiERPONT's telegram dictated to 
and sent by Campbell that persuaded Lincoln to sign the bill 
whereby West Virginia became . a State bearing the motto 
"Montani semper liberi." 

And what of PmRPONT? He remained faithful to his post 
as governor of Virginia until his term expired, until the Union 
was no longer in danger, then came back to the West Virginia 
hills, to his old home at Fairmont, to become the honored 
and esteemed private citizen, the pride of his family and 



56 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

neighbors, the friend of the friendless and poor, to build a 
church, to superintend and teach in its Sunday school for 
more than thirty years, to live a pure and stainless life filled 
with good deeds. He never sought office or honors, but at 
the same time he never" failed to take a deep and always intel- 
ligent, helpful interest in all things tending to the upbuilding 
of his community, his State, and his Nation. His trust in 
God and his faith in the future of our country grew stronger 
as the years of life advanced, and those closing years were 
full of peace and happiness. May I tell why I personally 
know this to be true? At the close of the political campaign 
of 1896 Judge Warren B. Hooker, of New York, then in Con- 
gress,, and others were billed to address meetings on one day 
at Morgantown, on the next day at Fairmont. The Morgan- 
town meeting was one of the largest gatherings ever held in 
that section of the State. It was an outpouring of the masses, 
and when the morning parade was over and the afternoon 
hour for speaking arrived, near, if not quite, ten thousand 
men and women faced the speaker's platform erected in the 
court-house square. As a token of appreciation of the pres- 
ence of this throng, our governor, William E. Glasscock; our 
Congressman, George C. Sturgiss; E. M. Grant, Doctor Fitch, 
and others put their heads together and planned a surprise 
for us. When the time came Governor Glasscock stepped 
forward, resigned the honor of presiding, and introduced as 
chairman in his stead — Waitman T. Willey! No man can 
truly describe the scene that followed. The old Senator, 
trembling under the weight of his 85 years of life that had 
been filled with toil and conflict, with great sacrifices and 
noble deeds, was going to make his last platform speech! 
With difficulty he arose to his feet, in fact had to be assisted, 
and in feeble tones he started, "My neighbors and friends," 
then stopped, and stood looking off with tear-dimmed eyes 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 57 

into space, his whole frame convulsed with emotion. His 
was always a commanding presence — it was peculiarly so at 
this time; smooth faced, a giant's frame of more than six 
feet in height and not a surplus ounce of flesh clothing it, his 
wonderfully expressive face, his dark, flashing, but sunken, 
eyes, gave him almost a supernatural appearance. Controlling 
himself, in sweet and simple words that brought tears to thou- 
sands of eyes, he referred to the long years he had spent in 
Monongalia and among her people; declared that if it were pos- 
sible he would gladly call back twenty-five years to continue 
his associations and labors; but that was not possible, and the 
time had come when he must depart and the ties of affection, 
so long existing, must be broken. His voice grew stronger as he 
touched the problems confronting our State, and every sentence 
was fraught with an earnest, abiding solicitude for her future 
prosperity and upbuilding. Still stronger came the words as 
he advanced to the national issues. He referred to the crisis 
of '61, to his witnessing the tearing down of the old flag in 
Richmond and the indignation that surged through. his soul 
at the sight. "But," said he, as by magic his frame straight- 
ened itself to its full height, the old fire came into his eyes, the 
long, bony arms shot forth, and his voice rang out like a trum- 
pet, "my neighbors, I fear a greater crisis than that of '61 now 
confronts us, and much as I love my country's flag, much as I 
am attached to you, I say to you, standing as I am with one foot 
in tim.e and the other in eternity, I would rather see you, my 
neighbors, my friends, haul down this flag that so proudly floats 
over us here to-day, attach it to the horse's tail, and, amid 
derisive shouts, drag it through the streets of my beloved Mor- 
gantown than have you vote for national repudiation and dis- 
honor." And then came such an appeal for country and national 
integrity as will never be forgotten by those who heard it. 
When that meeting was over people generally declared that it 



58 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

could not be equaled, and that Senator Willey's speech, for 
dramatic power and effect, would stand alone and unapproached, 
at least within the memory of those who heard it. John W. 
Mason, now Judge Mason, who but for sickness would be now 
addressing you far better than I am able to do, and other party 
leaders at Fairmont thought the meeting could be fully dupli- 
cated. Judge Hooker and his associates were entirely skepti- 
cal; in fact, they declared it an impossibility. When the day at 
Fairmont was over they admitted they were wrong. The crowd 
present was as large as that at Morgantown, and Mason filled 
his place as chairman only long enough to introduce in a few 
touching words West Virginia's Grand Old Man and Virginia's 
loyal old governor, Francis H. Pierpont, to preside in his stead 
and make his last platform speech. He, too, was tottering 
under the weight of more than the fourscore years which by 
reason of strength are allotted to man, and those years, too, 
had been filled with dangers, sacrifices, and noble deeds. He, 
too, had to be assisted to his feet and stood for a while supporting 
himself upon the shoulder of another. And his voice trembled 
at the start, but not long. Those present will not soon forget 
how that dear old kindly face soon flushed with enthusiasm, 
how the old eyes sparkled, and the voice rang out, and the 
trembling limbs straightened themselves, and he stood forth 
strong and jubilant as in the olden time. Willey's voice had 
been a trumpet, sounding forth a warning call to vigilance and 
the duty of meeting impending danger. Pierpont's was the 
joyous note of the clear-toned bell, sounding forth the glad 
summons to thanksgiving and praise for a victory that a clear 
insight into the future, and an abiding faith in the honor and 
integrity of the masses, made him sure would come. As we 
looked on his venerable form, into his placid, kindly face, heard 
the old burning thoughts, clothed in his wonted eloquent lan- 
guage, spring to his lips, listened to his joyous words outlining 



Ceremonies in Statuary Hall 59 

the sure and glorious future of our Nation and State, he appeared 
as one inspired. He seemed to be piercing the veil between the 
present and the future, and as we hung on his words foretelling 
the future of the State for which he had done so much and had 
loved so well — 

His voice sounded like a prophet's word, 
And in its glad tones were heard 
The shouts, of millions yet to be. 

The final summons came to him soon after in Pittsburg, where 
he had gone to live with his children and his grandchild in the 
home of his devoted daughter and son-in-law. He was all ready 
to go. His faith was sure and steadfast and reached the beyond. 
And on that Sabbath day when his friends there came to look 
upon him for the last time they found him enveloped in the old, 
soiled, time-worn flag with paper stars pasted on the azure 'field 
that had a history. May I recall it ? 

In Md;y, 1 86 1, it was reported at Fairmont that a company of 
confederate cavalry was on its way to destroy the railroad 
bridge there. The news caused great joy to those whose sym- 
pathies were with the South, and this joy was expressed by the 
display of many confederate flags. Messengers to the Union 
forces went swiftly, and soon the news came that a company was 
on its way to the defense. This made glad the hearts of those 
who loved the Union, but there was one cause of regret; they 
had no flag with which to greet these soldiers when they came. 
Then it was that the devoted wife of PierponT gathered some of 
her neighboring women together and in hot haste made a flag. 
They did not have other material suitable to make the stars, so 
they cut them out of paper and pasted them on the blue field. 
Then Mrs. Pierpont led a shouting band of hundreds to the 
bridge that was to have been destroyed, and proudly planted 
her flag there to encourage the boys in blue and tell them when 
they arrived that some hearts there were loyal and true. 



6o Governor Francis Harrison Pier pont 

Yes; they enfolded him in the flag that his loved one who had 
left him years ago had made, and thus they bore him up the 
Monongahela to the mountains again, back to the old home ; and 
the old companion in his struggles who had been educated at 
the same college, loved the same church, lived a like blameless 
life filled with heroic deeds. Senator Willey, came up those waters 
also that day and stood by the open grave and spoke his last 
words of tribute, how tender and affecting, to his friend, his 
copatriot, and then went back himself to die and be with him 
at rest. 

Lord God of Sabaoth, the God of Battle, and the God of Peace, 
train us, sons and daughters of men like these, with their loyalty 
and devotion, to support and defend the Constitution of the 
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and to 
bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so that we may be 
worthy of the heritage of the "mountains lying west of the 
Alleghenies." 

Mr. WooDYARD. The exercises will be concluded by the bene- 
diction, by Reverend U. G. B. Pierce, D. D., Chaplain of the 
Senate. 

Benediction by Reverend Ulysses G, B. Pierce, D. D. 

And now as God was with our sires, so may He be with their 
sons and with our children henceforth and forever. The blessing 
of God, our Father, be and remain with you all. Amen. 



Ktttptnmt of ^tatu? of 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 

March 8, 1910. 

Mr. Scott. I submit a concurrent resolution, and ask that it 
lie on the table subject to call. 

The concurrent resolution (S. C. Res. 24) was read and ordered 
to lie on the table, as follows: 

Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring) , That the 
statue of Francis H. Pierpont, presented by the State of West Virginia 
to be placed in Statuary Hall, is accepted in the name of the United States, 
and that the thanks of Congress be tendered to the State for the contribu- 
tion of the statue of one of its most eminent citizens, illustrous for the 
purity of his life and his distinguished services to the State and Nation. 

Second. That a copy of these resolutions, suitably engrossed and duly 
authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of West Virginia. 

April 4, 1910. 

Mr. Scott submitted the following resolution (S. Res. 209), 

which was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to: 

Resolved, That exercises appropriate to the reception and acceptance 
from the State of West Virginia of the statue of Francis H. Pierpont, 
erected in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, be made the special order for 
Saturday, April 30, 1910, after the conclusion of the routine morning 
business. 

ApriIv 30, 1 910. 
The Chaplain, Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, D. D., offered the 
following prayer: 

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the 
great love wherewith Thou hast loved us and that Thou hast 
not left Thyself without witness. As much as we adore the 
beauty and the power of Thine hand in the outer world, as 
clearly as we trace Thy providence in history, we thank Thee 

63 



64 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

even more, O heavenly Father, for Thy revelation in Thy chil- 
dren. We thank Thee for the life and for the service of him 
whose life we are to recall this day. Grant that the memory of 
such may never fade from our minds and that the example of 
such may kindle anew in our hearts the ardor of holy and patri- 
otic devotion. And unto Thee, our Father and our God, will 
we render all praise, now and forever more. Amen. 

Mr. Scott. Mr. President, I ask that the concurrent reso- 
lution submitted by me on March 8 be read by the Secretary. 

The Vice-President. The Secretary will read the concur- 
rent resolution as requested. 

The Secretary read as follows: 

Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring), That the 
statue of Francis H. Pierpont, presented to the State of West Virginia 
to be placed in Statuary Hall, is accepted in the name of the United States, 
and that the thanks of Congress be tendered to the State for the contribu- 
tion of the statue of one of its most eminent citizens, illustrious for the 
purity of his life and his distinguished services to the State and Nation. 

Second. That a copy of these resolutions, suitably engrossed and duly 
authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of West Virginia. 

Mr. Scott. Mr. President, I send to the desk a letter from 
the governor of West Virginia, which I ask may be read. 

The Vice-President. The Secretary will read the letter from 
the governor of West Virginia as requested. 

The Secretary read as follows: 

Charleston, W. Va., April 30, 1910. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives , Washijigton, D. C: 

Pursuant to action of the legislature of West Virginia, there has been 
erected in the Capitol of the United States a marble statue of the late 
Francis H. Pierpont, of West Virginia. In behalf of thfe people of this 
State I have the honor and the pleasure of presenting to the Government 
and the people of the United States this statue of one of the most famous 
sons of West Virginia. Governor Pierpont is known in our history as 
the great war governor of the restored government of Virginia, and by 
the people of West Virginia he is held in high and affectionate esteem for 
the great aid he gave them in their effort to attain statehood. A man of 
simple and strenuous life, of great heart and mind, of strong conviction 



Proceedings in the Senate 65 

and superb courage, of high ideals and lofty character, and of devotion to 

duty as he saw it; a man careful to discharge every obligation of the citizen, 

a patriot in whom there was no guile, and a public officer who knew and 

acted upon the knowledge that public office is created for the benefit of 

the people and not for the benefit of the officeholder, Governor Pierpont 

will ever stand out in our country's history as a heroic character in the 

throes attendant upon the second birth of the great Republic — a time that 

tried men's souls. 

Very respectfully, 

Wm. E. Glasscock, 

Governor of West \ 'irginia 
49963^ — lo s ■ 



Address of Mr. Elkins, of West Virginia 

Mr. President: To-day West Virginia honors the memory 
and deeds of Francis H. Pierpont, one of. her most illustrious 
sons, by tendering to the Nation his statue in marble to be 
placed in Statuary Hall. 

The credit of having formed the new State of West Virginia, 
now a great Commonwealth, with nearly a million and a half of 
happy, prosperous, and contented people, and destined to hold 
within her borders one of the densest populations in the Union, 
must ever remain with Governor Pierpont and his associates. 

Before the Revolutionary war the question of dividing the 
Colony of Virginia and giving a separate government in some 
form to the people of the mountain portion was agitated. 

A certain amount of friction and jealousy always existed 
between the people of the mountain region of Virginia and 
those -of the agricultural lands extending back from the ocean 
to the Allegheny Mountains. The people of the lowlands, aris- 
tocratic in their tendencies, were wealthy, and generally owners 
of plantations and slaves, while the people inhabiting the moun- 
tainous portion of the State, who always loved liberty, were 
poor and compelled to battle with nature and the elements for 
a livelihood. 

Following the Revolutionary war for independence and for 

thirty or forty years preceding the late civil war the question 

of separation or division of the State was again raised and, off 

and on, became acute. 

67 



68 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

In a speech made a short time before his death, October 24, 
1852, at the laying of the corner stone of a monument in the 
city of Richmond, Daniel Webster warned the people that in 
case of secession or the dissolution of the Union, Virginia would 
be divided into two States. 

Old Virginia, which had given to the Nation so many great 
statesmen and great Presidents, with her proud history, her 
glorious and hallowed memories, and splendid traditions, chose, 
in an hour of passion, the way of secession — Agoing out of the 
orbit of the Nation's life. This false step and the civil war that 
followed furnished the way to West Virginia being made a State 
in the Union. 

The loyal and liberty-loving mountaineers of what is now 
West Virginia seized this opportunity and realized the fruition 
of the hopes cherished in the hearts of their ancestors for more 
than a century. 

The ordinance of secession was passed by the State of Vir- 
ginia on May 23, 1861, and. ratified by the majority of the people 
on June 11, 1861. Following the passage of the ordinance, and 
even before its ratification, the people of northwestern Virginia, 
residing principally in the mountains and the valley of the Ohio 
River, and occupying that portion of the Commonwealth now 
embracing West Virginia, who were in the main loyal to the 
Union, called a convention to protest against the act of seces- 
sion and to take steps to reorganize and restore the state govern- 
ment. 

The first convention assembled, with this end in view, on May 
13, 1 86 1, and after a session of three days adjourned on May 16. 
It adopted a series of resolutions, the ninth of which is as fol- 
lows : 

Resolved, That inasmuch as it is a conceded poUtical axiom that gov- 
ernment is founded on the consent of the governed, and is instituted 
for their good, and it can not be denied that the course pursued by the 
ruUng power in the State is utterly subversive and destructive of our 



Address of Mr. Elkins, of West Virginia 69 

interests, we believe we may rightfully and successfully appeal to the 
proper authorities of Virginia to permit us peacefully and lawfully to 
separate from the residue of the State and form ourselves into a govern- 
ment to give effect to the wishes, views, and interests of our constituents. 

This was a direct appeal to Virginia by the citizens opposed 
to secession, founded on good reasons, to consent to the forma- 
tion of a new State. 

The second convention assembled June 11 and remained in 
session until August 21. 

It proceeded at once to form a government, calling it the 
reorganized government of Virginia. The proceedings of this, 
as well as succeeding conventions, which perfected the machin- 
ery of the restored government, were attended by many promi- 
nent citizens of West Virginia now living and highly honored. 

Arthur I. Boreman was president of the first convention and 

afterwards became the first governor of the State of West 

Virginia. In this convention "A declaration of the people of 

Virginia represented in convention at Wheeling protesting 

against secession" and declaring vacant the offices of all who 

favored the same was adotped, which is as follows: 

Viewing with great concern the deplorable condition to which this once 
happy Commonwealth must be reduced unless some regular adequate 
remedy is speedily adopted, and appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and 
on behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare that the preserva- 
tion of their dearest rights and liberties and their security in person and 
property imperatively demand the reorganization of the government of the 
Commonwealth, and that all acts of the said convention and executive 
tending to separate this Commonwealth from the United States, or to levy 
and carry on war against them, are without authority and void; and the 
offices of all who adhere to the said convention and executive, whether 
legislative, executive, or judicial, are vacated. 

On the 2oth of June, 1861, the reorganized State of Virginia 
elected state officials, Francis H. Pierpont being named gov- 
ernor. 

There was a regular session of the general assembly, con- 
vened December 2, 1861, which adjourned February 13, 1862. 



yo Governor Francis Harrison Pier pout 



In his message to the legislature Governor PierponT said: 

1 regret that I can not congratulate you upon the termination of the 
great civil war with which it has pleased Divine Providence to chasten the 
pride of the American people. It still rages in our midst and around our 
very homes. But a year ago no nation was more prosperous than this. 
Peace, happiness, and prosperity prevailed throughout the land. Now the 
elements of civil society have been broken up. Brothers are arrayed 
against brothers and father against son, and rapine and murder are deso- 
lating the land. 

The following extract is taken from the governor's message 

to the third session of the general assembly, v^^hich convened 

December 4, 1862, and adjourned February 6, 1863: 

Gentlemen, it is our fortune to live in these times of fearful responsibili- 
ties and duties. We are making history to be read by and exert its influence 
upon coming generations. With a deep sense of our responsibilities and 
with an earnest supplication to the Great Source of all strength for assist- 
ance in the discharge of our respective duties during this momentous crisis, 
let us enter upon the work before us. 

These messages give a vivid picture of the horrors and results 
of civil war and show what manner of man Governor PikrponT 
was; they also show the great difficulties against which he and 
his associates contended under most trying conditions and the 
tremendous responsibilities resting upon them. How true and 
how prophetic it was that he and his associates were making 
history to be read by future generations, and what glorious his- 
tory it is. This history should be read and studied by our chil- 
dren from generation to generation. No better understanding 
of our Constitution and the structure of our Government could 
be gained than by studying the causes leading up to the great 
civil war and the consequences that followed. 

On the 5th of February, 1863, the restored government was 
removed to Alexandria and made the seat of government for 
the State of Virginia. Simultaneous with the organization and 
establishment of the restored government of Virginia, steps were 
taken to form the State of West Virginia from a part of the old 
State. 



Address of Mr. Elkins, of West Virginia 71 

By reorganizing the State of Virginia and giving it a legal 
existence, Governor PierponT placed it within the power of the 
State to give its consent to the formation of the new State, thus 
complying with the Constitution of the United States, which 

says: 

No new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any 
other State without the consent of the legislature of the State concerned. 

This provision of the Constitution made it necessary to secure 
the consent of the State of Virginia to the division of the State, 
and accordingly the general assembly of the reorganized gov- 
ernment of the State of Virginia, under proclamation of Gov- 
ernor PiERPONT, dated April 18, 1862, was convened in extra 
session at Wheeling, May 12 following. On the second day of 
the session. May 13, an act giving the consent of the legislature 
of the State of Virginia for the formation and erection of the 
new State within the jurisdiction of Virginia was passed. 

In this way the consent of the State of Virginia to the forma- 
tion of a new State was obtained, and the new State of West 
Virginia was formed, a constitution adopted, and application 
made for admission into the Union. 

The Thirty-seventh Congress was then in session. The re- 
stored government of Virginia had five Members of the House 
of Representatives and two Senators. The movement to have 
the State admitted at that session did not succeed, because of 
the failure to make certain provisions in the constitution respect- 
ing slavery. 

A constitutional convention was assembled February 12, 
1863, which made the necessary changes in the constitution 
regarding slavery, and as amended it was again submitted to 
Congress, when the ordinance to admit West Virginia as a new 
State in the Union was passed, and on the 20th of April Presi- 
dent Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring sixty days after 
the date thereof the State of West Virginia should be admitted 
into the Union as a new State. 



72 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

On the 2oth of June, 191 3, the State will celebrate its fiftieth 
anniversary as a State in the ITnion. Steps have been taken to 
this end. There will be thanksgivings and rejoicings by all the 
people within her borders for the great blessings, happiness, 
and prosperity the State has enjoyed from the beginning and 
the splendid outl6ok the future promises. That day should be 
observed and celebrated in a way to impress our people and instill 
in the minds of our children loyalty and affection for the State 
and Nation. The state and national flags should float together 
from every school, court-house, hall, and public place in the 
State. There should be expressions of joy everywhere, music, 
patriotic airs, processions, and every demonstration of respect 
made and gratitude shown to the founders of the State. 

Speeches should be made wherever speakers can be found to 
tell the story again and again of the deeds done, obstacles over- 
come, and sacrifices made to give to us and the unborn millions 
who come after us a great and rich Commonwealth. The 20th 
of June should be the independence day of West Virginia and 
legalized as a holiday for all the years to come. 

President Lincoln favored the creation and admission of the 
State of West Virginia into the Union because he believed it 
was right and in accordance with law. He favored it for 
another reason. Looking at the map of the Union which he 
was trying to preserve, he saw the success of the confederacy 
or the secession movement meant dividing the Northern States 
in twain, because the northern limit of Virginia was only 
about 100 miles from the Lakes. This would have added to 
the unnumbered woes and disasters following the dissolution of 
the Union. 

Governor Pierpont had good blood in his veins. He was 
related to the distinguished family bearing his name in New 
York, from which State his grandfather moved, in 1770, to old 
Virginia, locating near Morgantown, where he built a blockhouse 



Address of Mr. Elkins, of West Virginia 73 



for protection against the Indians, and where his father and he 
were born. 

After attending the country schools at his home he went to 
Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and was gradu- 
ated in the year 1839. He then studied and became a lawyer, 
being successful both in his profession and in business. 

As time goes on and the clouds of the great civil war are 

lifted, his deeds and great achievements will be seen with 

clearer vision, better understood, and he will rank in history 

as one of the great men of his time. 

His triumph will be sung, 

By some yet unmolded tongue 

Far on in summers that we shall not see — 

and unborn poets and orators will rise up to do justice to his 
deeds and memory. We are too close to the great events, we 
are still too near the shadow of the great mountain, to trace its 
outline and know its height and grandeur. 

While he was the life of the movement to restore the govern- 
ment of old Virginia, he was, at the same time, the soul of the 
greater movement to form the new State of West Virginia. 

He was a man of high ideals, firm and just in his convictions, 
and fixed in his purposes. He was virile, forceful, insistent, and 
dominating. A devout member of the great Methodist Church, 
he was a religious man and always had within him the fear of 
God, which is the beginning of wisdom. He was made of such 
stuff as builders of states and empires are made. 

He founded a State whose people will love and bless his 
memory as the suns roll on. 

He loved Hberty, law, order, and justice, and devoted his life 
to promoting all these things and helping his fellow-man. 

He chained his name to undying fame and then joined the 
dead who never die. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries.] 



Address of Mr. Dolllver, of Iowa 

Mr. President: The distinguished Senators from West Vir- 
ginia have done me the honor to invite me to participate in the 
reception of the statue of Governor Pierpont. I sincerely 
appreciate the compliment they pay me, and I have a genuine 
interest in this occasion, because I was born among the West 
Virginia hills, and this man, whose career we are celebrating 
and whose figure we are setting up in our Hall of Fame, was 
one of the legendary heroes of my boyhood. A great name; 
so near that we saw him and knew him and felt that high 
influence which his personality exercised on everybody coming 
in contact with him. 

He seemed particularly near to us because my good old father 
was a Methodist preacher, and this man's house was a hospit- 
able place for his entertainment during all the years of his itin- 
erant ministry among the mountains of West Virginia. So this 
occasion has to me a little more than a historic interest, because 
I find it associated with all the enthusiasms of my boyhood and 
my young manhood, and because it recalls some of the happiest, 
freest years of my life. 

I think we ought to say, among other things, that the artist 
who made this figure of Governor Pierpont has won a very rare 
success in the most difficult art that has ever been practiced 
among men. I believe it was Mr. Emerson who said there is a 
certain absurdity in a statue, a certain necessary failure to pro- 
duce any illusion of the imagination by the mere chiseling of 
marble or the mere casting of metal. Whether that is true or 

75 



76 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

not I do not know. All I know about statues is that very few 
of them have ever made any impression upon me, either as 
images of the men typified or as impressive figures for any 
purpose. 

Our own Statuary Hall bears a pathetic witness to the fact 
that this art is not a very common one, either among our own 
countrymen or anywhere in the world; and yet this artist has 
succeeded in producing a figure of Governor PierponT very life- 
like, a figure so natural that those who remember the kindly 
and benignant face of the old governor pause reverently before 
it; because there is in it a suggestion of truth which does not 
occur very often to one who inspects the statuary in this Capitol. 
And so, to start with, I desire to pay a passing tribute to the 
genius in whose mind this figure was formed before it took shape 
in the marble. 

There is another thing that has impressed me as I have 
thought of this statue. Many men have come to me to ask, 
"Who was Governor Pierpont? What did he do? Why 
should his statue stand with Washington and the famous states- 
men of other generations?" A very narrow question, because 
as I look at it it is not the business of the sculptor to perpetuate 
a man's fame. The greatest fame in the world is made ridiculous 
by an effort to perpetuate it by the chiseling of stone or the 
modeling of clay. 

Washington needs no statue here or anywhere. The monu- 
ment which we have builded is in some sense a barbarism, a 
theft from pagan ages. It is a curiosity, exciting merely the 
interest of travelers and tourists. The fame of Washington has 
not been helped by it at all, because his achievements and his 
career are beyond all that, and his monument lies in the recorded 
history of the world rather than in any feeble attempts of his 
countrymen to perpetuate the memory of his deeds. 



Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 77 

The same thing is true of lyincoln. There have been several 
attempts in recent years to provide a fitting statue of Mr. 
Lincoln for this city. I doubt very much whether it had better 
be pursued. The Republic itself while it endures among men 
will be a memorial to him ; and of all leaders of past generations 
he least of all needs the poor tribute either of the genius of our 
artists or of the resources of our Treasury. [Applause in the 
galleries.] 

Nobody thinks of such a thing as building a monument to 
the Man of Nazareth, because the sort of service He rendered 
to the world, the change His ministry wrought in the move- 
ments of history, make such a thing superfluous; and men turn 
away from the desecration and look to the word that spoke, and 
as never man spoke, the thing that was done, and to the miracle 
that was wrought in the midst of the ages, as a complete memo- 
rial of a ministry like that. 

I believe that in presenting this monument and writing upon 
it the name of the war governor of Virginia the State has been 
guided by a very intelligent sort of enthusiasm for one of its 
early heroes. Governor Pierpont's fame did need this tribute. 
Otherwise the things which he did and the celebrity he had 
among men might easily have slipped out of the memory of 
contemporaries and successors and the riches which he added 
to the history of his times been lost to the youth of the country 
which he served. The State did wisely to select him, because 
he engaged in an enterprise so essential to the welfare of the 
Republic that unless it be understood, unless the motives of the 
men who did the work are known and kept ahve among our 
people, incalculable loss will occur to our institutions. 

I do not think he was a great man in the sense in which 
Napoleon or Caesar or the mighty captains of the past were 
great men. In fact, the more I see of all kinds of men, the less 
interest I take in those writings which undertake to point out 



yS Governor Francis H arrison P ierpont 

the characteristics of great men. I do not know whether 
Napoleon was a great man or not. I know that he waged great 
wars, won great victories, lost great battles, and ended some- 
what ambiguously on a desert island; but I have read some- 
where that he left no trace of his career in Europe that can be 
found to-day except his grave. 

What was done in the mountains of West Virginia during the 
civil war left the only trace on the map of the United States 
that is to be found now at the end of fifty years after that con- 
flict was ended. Not a foot of the territory of the United States 
was disturbed, not a line of the national boundaries was inter- 
fered with ; the map went back exactly as it was, with this excep- 
tion — that in a corner of Virginia there was written, now nearly 
fifty years ago, the name of a new State, and that State itself is 
more permanent than all our monuments. The object which I 
think the people of West Virginia have had in view is to connect 
with the origin of the State the name of one of the men of heroic 
mold, though very humble position in the world, who helped to 
lay its foundations. 

A great man is a man who fears God, keeps His command- 
ments, and, with an ordinary good sense, has the fortunfe to 
stand in some angle of the fight where the history of the world 
is being made. He becomes great because he has the oppor- 
tunity of doing great things, though before the deed he may not 
have been lifted up among his fellow-men, and though after 
the deed he may fall into such obscurity as to raise questions 
within fifty years as to what he did and what manner of man 
he was. This monument is really to the State of West Virginia. 
It is a monument to times that we hardly yet understand. It 
is a sort of a memorial of our heroic age. 

In the last few years I have become interested in studying 
original historical documents. I bought an old history of Eng- 
land, now out of print for more than one hundred and forty 



Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 79 

years, the history which contains the original documentary 
story of the progress of parUamentary government in England, 
a book I think Macaulay had read, because I notice that what 
he has paraphrased into captivating English prose this good 
Frenchman, M. Rapin, had written down in extenso the docu- 
ments just as they were filed, the debates just as they were 
spoken. And the thing about the old records that impressed 
me was that there is a certain rugged simplicity about every 
one of them. The controversy between the barons and King 
John is put down in language that everybody can understand. 
King John understood it thoroughly and acted accordingly; 
and it reads now not particularly like a high forum of debate, 
but like a dead level of dead earnest conversation with im- 
portant business on hand. The speeches and letters of Oliver 
Cromwell have a singular simplicity of manner about thein. 
One would hardly call them learned or eloquent, and they cer- 
tainly were not long, as we sometimes have speeches these days, 
but they went to the root of the matter. Every convention in 
which he participated got impressed instantly with the ideas 
that were in his head. 

The routine of the convention that declared our independence, 
is a very crude thing, looked at from the standpoint of learned 
parliamentary discussion, and even our constitutional conven- 
tion seems to have been composed of men with certain definite 
ideas in their minds and a certain quietness of speech rather 
impressive in these days of learning and eloquence and remarks 
without end. 

But I have compared the proceedings of these mountain people 
of my native State with the parliamentary debates around 
which English liberty has been organized in all centuries, and I 
am not exaggerating anything when I say that the men who 
rode on horseback into Wheeling from the mountains and tied 



8o Governor Francis H arrison Pierponf 

their horses behind the old hotel, with which my boyhood was 
familiar, and inquired of a policeman where the convention was 
meeting — these men created a literature as lofty, as pure, as 
patriotic, as interpretative of the spirit of freedom as was ever 
made either in England or America in all the struggles which 
have been fought out in the progress of civil liberty. 

I knew all these names; they were all household words. I do 
not want to be invidious about them. I would not mention any 
of them without the approval of the governor of West Virginia. 
But I picked out in my boyhood the men who in my imagina- 
tion had made the State of West Virginia. I picked out one 
of them, possibly, because he was the brother of my grandfather, 
an old-time Virginia lawyer, as sturdy a character as ever 
entered the House of Representatives. He was in that old 
House before the war, during the war, and long afterwards. 
He belonged to a generation that was past and gone even when I 
knew him — William G. Brown, of Preston County. 

He was a member of the Richmond convention. He voted 
against the ordinance of secession, and he used to interest me 
when I was a child by telling me that he saddled his own horse 
in the night and started back for Preston County because he 
could not sleep. I said, "Uncle William, why could you not 
sleep?" He said, "There were a large number of people walk- 
ing up and down under my window with a rope suggesting in a 
loud tone of voice, 'Hang William G. Brown!'" So the old 
gentleman could not sleep, and having delivered his message 
against the ordinance of secession in a speech almost prophetic 
of what afterwards happened, he saddled his horse and went 
back to Preston County. I put him among the giants of those 
days, entitled to the memory of all patriotic students of Ameri- 
can history. 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of lo 



wa 



Then there was Waitman T. Willey, a name I am afraid not 
very familiar to our times, and yet those of us who knew him 
and studied law with him and had the daily contact and inspira- 
tion of his great presence will never forget him, and will never 
forget the mark he made upon the national life. 

By the side of these two was Governor PierponT. The Sena- 
tor from West. Virginia [Mr. Elkins] said that he had a college 
education. I suppose that is true, and yet he did not use that 
very much in the rough business of the life which he lived 
among that people. Here is his speech in that convention. I 
find in it no classical allusions of any sort, no ornaments of 
learning, but a straight, relentless statement of the situation of 
the mountain counties of Virginia. His idea was that when 
people were about to be hung it was important to get together 
and hang the people who were conspiring against the safety and 
comfort of the population. It was on that theory and in that 
spirit that he joined the first convention in West Virginia. 

I say that he was a great man only in this, that he had the 
intuitive perception to realize the character of the crisis. He 
had that unfaiHng common sense which is the greatest faculty 
of the human mind, whatever men may say, to do the thing 
that was wise and needed at the time to master the situation 
and administer it for the welfare of the people. 

There is something interesting about the childlike simplicity 
of the old man, shrinking from any responsibility except the 
responsibiHty of doing what ought to be done. He did not want 
to be governor; he did not want to be Senator. 

The position of governor of the reorganized State of Virginia 
was not a position for which there were many candidates, for 
the reason that the State of Virginia had retired from the Union 
and had joined by a treaty of peace and concord and amity a 

49963° — 10 6 



82 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

foreign power, according to the official documents, and had 
every arrangement made to greatly diminish the number and the 
activities of such persons within her borders as were discon- 
tented with that situation. So an office that usually would have 
had a good many candidates for it did not present a field of 
very active rivalry; but by common consent they passed over 
the orators and lawyers and statesmen Who thronged the con- 
vention, and they said, "Mr. PierponT, will you do this work?" 
It was in vain he said that there were others better calculated 
for it than he was. They said, "We want you to do this work; 
everybody has confidence in you." And he did the work with- 
out any fear, except the fear of God. 

I have here a letter which he wrote to his wife within an hour 
after the convention had selected him as the governor of the 
State of Virginia. I intend to read it, because under such cir- 
cumstances it becomes an authentic interpretation of the man's 
life. Here are his words, which no eye was to see except the 
woman whose fortunes were bound up in his : 

The convention to-day unanimously conferred on me the position of 
governor of Virginia. In this revolution divine Providence only knows 
what will be the result of this step. I have sincerely asked for His guid- 
ance and protection. The way has been opened through my instrumen- 
tality to assume the shape it has. It may be a good God has in His Provi- 
dence placed me in this position for wise purposes of His own. Though 
all around seem to look on it as the hour of my triumph, yet to me it was 
the most trying day of my life. I earnestly pray for wisdom from on high. 

A sentiment like that puts this man among the saints of 
God of all ages. And it is an interesting fact that no step was 
ever taken in the progress of liberty among men that did not 
leave in the literature of the situation evidence of this sublime 
faith in the providence of God. 

But it is said that the convention at Richmond had the same 
faith in God's providence. That is true. We are living in a 



Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 83 



very strange world. The old Psalmist, King of Israel, under- 
stood this world probably better than any other man who ever 
lived in it. vSometimes he throws into a single sentence explana- 
tions of the mysteries that surround us. How do men pray to 
God for victory in causes that are opposed to each other ? What 
does the old Psalmist say ? — 

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that 
fear him. 

For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. 

Would the good Lord pity people who were striving in the 
light of day for worthy objects directly in line with His will? 
Not at all. The fact that the good Lord looks with pity upon 
his children is at least a suggestion that our blunders, our mis- 
takes, our shortcomings excite not vengeance, but only divine 
compassion; pity that we are dust, pity that our frame is so frail. 
So all efforts of men to serve Him, all the heathenisms of other 
ages, all the errors and heresies of faith in all centuries — these 
are not things for strife, because God, knowing our frame, look- 
ing with sympathy upon His children, has an eye of pity even 
for our blunders and for our misfortunes. 

It can not be denied that the purposes of Providence lay with 
Governor Pierpont at Wheeling rather than with Governor 
Letcher at Richmond. No man fathoms these mighty upheavals 
of nations, and yet now, at the end of fifty years, it is no offense 
to say, and as a filial descendant of the Commonwealth I do not 
hesitate to say, that the counsel at Richmond was a counsel of 
blindness and confusion and that this counsel in the mountains 
of West Virginia, where men on horseback undertook to restate 
the civil rights of the community, was a counsel almost inspired 
in its insight into plans of Providence. Long since all the bitter- 
ness of strife has been forgotten, but it is a dull mind which 
can. not see that those mountaineers understood the increasing 



84 Governor Francis Harrison Pierp07it 

purpose which runs through the ages a good deal better than it 
was understood at Richmond, and that what they did has had 
not only the sanction of history, but the sanction which is exem- 
plified in the uninterrupted blessing and favor of Almighty God. 

The formation of the State of West Virginia was not a sudden 
agitation. The debate at Wheeling indicates that for a genera- 
tion the mountaineers had been trying to get away from Rich- 
mond. They complained that the wealth of the State and the 
power of the State was on the east side of the mountains. They 
complained that they could not reach the capital except on 
horseback. They complained that their commerce was with the 
Ohio River and with Pittsburg rather than with the James and 
with Norfolk. For a generation there had been unrest and 
uncertainty of the future in the minds of those mountaineers. 
Besides that there was little or ho slavery in the mountains; 
not that those people were better than other people in Virginia, 
but because slavery was not profitable in the mountains, and 
so it had made no foothold there; and seeing the institution of 
slavery afar off, those mountaineers had not lost the prejudice 
against it which Washington and Jefferson had, and which was 
universal in the States in still later times. 

And so they claimed, on account of unequal tax levies, that 
they were not getting as much out of Virginia as they were 
putting in. They had one-third of the territory and one-third 
of the population, but they did not have any canals or public 
works. The only visible evidence of the bounty of Virginia on 
the west side of the mountains was the insane asylum at Weston, 
since developed into a very great institution. But with that 
exception, the century of taxpaying into the treasury at Rich- 
mond produced no tangible evidences of their connection with 
the public funds of the State of Virginia. 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa 85 

And so those mountaineers were grumbling, and occasional 
public meetings had been held for twenty-five or thirty years 
looking toward a partition of the State, in order that that 
portion of it which was commercially connected with the 
Ohio River might not be under bondage to a state govern- 
ment the influence and bounty of which seldom extended 
beyond the Allegheny Mountains. And so, in a certain sense, 
they were ripe for the new agitation. 

Now, I do not intend to debate the constitutional law that 
is involved in the creation of the State of West Virginia. When 
I was a boy it was a very common subject of debate and a 
very bitter subject. I have more than once been engaged in 
debate down there in West Virginia that resulted in the crude 
and unattractive form of argument known as fist fighting. 
Such were the passions that were alive even when I was a boy, 
and those passions are still alive when we stir them up now, 
and for that reason I do not intend to debate it. It was a very 
debatable question. 

Here were thirty-four counties in Virginia. Virginia seceded 
from the Union, threw off the Constitution, and declared it 
void and no longer applicable to them; allied itself with a 
foreign power; and here are these thirty-four counties calling 
a popular convention to reorganize the State. Well, they kept 
pretty close to the ancient precepts and landmarks of civil 
liberty. They had the Bill of Rights of Virginia in one hand 
and a few additions on their own account in the other when 
they held that convention. 

After they got Virginia reorganized, they elected members 
of Congress, my uncle, William G. Brown, one of them, with 
Waitman T. Willey and John S. Carlile in the Senate. 

Now, when the Senate and House received those gentlemen 
as representatives from the State of Virginia the folks down 



86 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



in the foothills thought that was a pretty good indorsement 
-of the claim that they were the- State of Virginia. But they 
had no sooner got their men seated here than the legislature, 
acting for the thirty-four counties claiming to be the' State of 
Virginia, passed a simple little resolution giving the consent 
of the State of Virginia to the erection, within certain bound- 
aries, of a new State to be called West Virginia. They started 
out to call it Kanawha, but they feared the people would not 
generally be able to pronounce that, and for fear it might be 
taken as a sort of desire to get away from the memories and 
liistory of the Old Dominion, they wrote it down West Vir- 
ginia. As soon as they had given the consent of Virginia to 
the erection of the northwestern counties into the State of 
West Virginia, they prepared a constitution and came down 
here and offered themselves for admission into the Union, and 
it produced about as interesting a constitutional controve:gsy 
as ever occurred in the history of any country. 

It bothered Abraham Lincoln a good deal. He had a great 
Cabinet, but from what I can find out, reading biographies of 
those of them that left literary remains, it was not an alto- 
gether harmonious body. Nevertheless, when the question of 
signing the bill and admitting the State of West Virginia into 
the Union came up, Mr. Lincoln thought he should go to the 
bottom of it, and so he wrote to each member of his Cabinet 
to let him know his views about the law and about the expe- 
diency of signing the bill; and each one of them replied in 
writing. I wish that practice could be perpetuated and the 
replies printed occasionally so that we might know better than 
we do now what is going on in the executive departments. 

This book, which I regard as the greatest biography that 
has ever appeared in any language of the world — Abraham 
Lincoln: A History, by Nicolay and Hay, two men who knew 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa 87 



him better than anybody else — contains the answer of each one 
of the members of the Cabinet. 

I do not intend to read them, but I intend to print them 
just the same as if I had- read them. 

The Cabinet divided equally on the question. Mr. Seward 
says, "Yes; the thing is perfectly constitutional and absolutely 
right and expedient." Mr. Chase said, "Yes; nobody can 
question the constitutionality of it, and, so far as its expe- 
diency is concerned, the only thing wrong about it is it was a 
little slow in coming." Mr. Stanton, a great Democrat, the 
man who wrote to Buchanan the day after the battle of Bull 
Run that the Government was gone to pieces simply because 
Lincoln had not sense enough to administer it, made his re- 
port, and I believe I will read that, because one would natu- 
rally expect, if anybody would be opposed to it, Stanton would 
be the man. Mr. Stanton made a very brief statement of his 
views. He says: 

The Constitution expressly authorizes a new State to be formed or 
erected within the jurisdiction of another State. The act of Congress 
is in pursuance of that authority. The measure is sanctioned by the 
legislature of the State within whose jurisdiction the new State is formed. 
When the new State is formed, its consent can be given, and then all the 
requirements of the Constitution are complied with. I have been unable 
to perceive any point on which the act of Congress conflicts with the 
Constitution. By the erection of the new State the geographical bound- 
ary heretofore existing between the free and slave States will be broken, 
and the advantage of this upon every point of consideration surpasses 
all objections which have occurred to me on the question of expediency. 

So he thinks it was not only constitutional, but absolutely 
right and expedient. 

The other three took the very opposite opinion. Mr. Welles, 
the Secretary of the Navy, said it was all wrong; that it was 
a scandalous advantage taken of revolutionary conditions to 
misrepresent the situation. The Attorney-General, Mr. Bates— 
I do not know much about him, either for or against, but this 



88 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

book, the proceedings of the West Virginia convention, indi- 
■cates that he had what would now be called the typewriter 
habit; that he was writing down there and telling them what 
to do, and, curiously enough, he wrote one thing to one fellow 
and- when that letter was read another fellow got up and said 
that he also had heard from him, and read another letter, 
apparently the very opposite. So I do not put much confi- 
dence in his constitutional views. He was satisfied that it was 
a fraudulent transaction and would scandaHze everybody con- 
cerned with it. A similar view was taken by Mr. Blair. I will 
print them all, partly for the purpose of preserving the history 
of this transaction and partly for the purpose of showing how 
much wiser a man sat at the head of that Cabinet than any or 
all of them put together that surrounded his table. 

On the 23d of December, 1862, the President addressed the following 
note to his constitutional advisers: "A bill for an act entitled 'An act for 
the admission of the State of "West Virginia" into the Union, and for 
other purposes,' has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate 
and has been duly presented to me for my action. I respectfully ask 
of each of you an opinion, in writing, on the following questions, to wit: 
First. Is the said act constitutional? Second. Is the said act expedient?" 
Six members of the Cabinet answered this request with written opinions; 
the Secretary of the Interior, Caleb B., Smith, the seventh member,, had 
recently retired frorn the Cabinet, having been appointed to a judgeship in 
Indiana and his successor had not yet been named. Three members — 
Seward, Chase, and Stanton — answered the questions in the affirmative, 
the other three — Welles, Blair, and Bates — in the negative. 

Upon the constitutional point Mr. Seward's argument, in part, ran 
thus: 

"It seems to me that the political body which has given consent in 
this -case is really and incontestably the State of Virginia. So long as the 
United States do not recognize the secession, departure, or separation 
of one of the States, that State must be deemed as existing and having a 
constitutional place within the Union, whatever may be at any moment 
exactly its revolutionary condition. A State thus situated can not be 
deemed to be divided into two or more States merely by any revolutionary 
proceeding which may have occurred, because there can not be, constitu- 
tionally, two or more States of Virginia. 

"The newly organized State of Virginia is therefore at this moment, 
by the express consent of the United States, invested with all the rights 



■ Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 89 

of the State of Virginia and .charged with all the powers, privileges, and 
dignity of that State. If the United States allow to that organization 
any of these rights, powers, and privileges, it must be allowed to possess 
and enjoy them all. If it be a State competent to be represented in Con- 
gress and bound to pay taxes, it is a State competent to give the required 
consent of the State to the formation and erection of the new State of 
West Virginia within the jurisdiction of Virginia." 

"Upon the question of expediency," wrote Mr. Seward, "I am d'eter- 
mined by two considerations: First. The people of Western Virginia will 
be safer from molestation for their loyalty, because better able to protect 
and defend themselves as a new and separate State, than they would be ii 
left to demoralizing uncertainty upon the question whether, in the prog- 
ress of the war, they may not be again reabsorbed in the State of Virginia 
and subjected to severities as a punishment for their present devotion to 
the Union. The first duty of the United States is protection to loyalty 
wherever it is found. Second. I am of opinion that the harmony and peace 
of the Union will be promoted by allowing the new State to be formed 
and erected, which will assume jurisdiction over that part of the valley of 
the Ohio which lies on the south side of the Ohio River, displacing, in a 
constitutional and lawful manner, the jurisdiction heretofore exercised 
there by a political power concentrated at the head of the James River." 
On the question of constitutionality Mr. Chase argued, in part : 
"In every case of insurrection involving the persons exercising the 
powers of state government, when a large body of the people remain faith- 
ful, that body, so far as the Union is concerned, must be taken to consti- 
tute the State. It would have been as absurd as it would have been 
impolitic to deny to the large loyal population of Virginia the powers of 
a state government, because men whom they had clothed with executive 
or legislative or judicial powers had betrayed their trusts and joined in 
rebellion against their country. It does not admit of doubt, therefore, as 
it seems to me, that the legislature which gave its consent to the formation 
and erection of the State of West Virginia was the true and only lawful 
legislature of the State of Virginia. The Madison Papers clearly show that 
the consent of the legislature of the original State was the only consent 
required to the erection and formation of a new State within its jurisdiction. 
That consent having been given, the consent of the new State, if required, 
is proved by her application for admission. Nothing required by the 
Constitution to the formation and admission of West Virginia into the 
United States is therefore wanting, and the act of admission must neces- 
sarily be constitutional. Nor is this conclusion technical, as some may 
think. The legislature of Virginia, it may be admitted, did not contain 
many members from the eastern counties. It contained, however, repre- 
sentatives from all counties whose inhabitants were not either rebels them- 
selves or dominated by greater numbers of rebels. It was the only legis- 
lature of the State known to the Union. 



90 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

"If its consent was not valid, no consent could be. If its consent was 
not valid, the Constitution, as to the people of West Virginia, has been so 
suspended by the rebeUion that a most important right under it is utterly- 
lost." 

With regard to the question of expediency, he writes: 

"The act is almost universally regarded as of vital importance to their 
welfare by the loyal people most immediately interested, and it has received 
the sanction of large majorities in both Houses of Congress. These facts 
afford strong presumptions of expediency. It may be said, indeed, that 
the admission of West Virginia will draw after it the necessity of admitting 
other States under the consent of extemporized legislatures assuming to 
act for whole States, though really representing no important part of 
their territory. I think this necessity imaginary. There is no such legis- 
lature, nor is there likely to be. No such legislature, if extemporized, is 
likely to receive the recognition of Congress or the Executive. The case 
of West Virginia will form no evil precedent. Far otherwise. It will 
encourage the loyal by the assurance it will give of national recognition 
and support, but it will inspire no hopes that the National Government will 
countenance needless and unreasonable atternpts to break up or impair 
the integrity of States. If a case parallel to that of West Virginia shall 
present itself, it will doubtless be entitled to like consideration; but the 
contingency of such a case is surely too remote to countervail all the 
considerations of expediency which sustain the act." 

The answer of Mr. Stanton accords with his habitual positiveness of 
opinion and brevity of statement: 

"The Constitution expressly authorizes a new State to be formed or 
erected within the jurisdiction of another State. The act of Congress 
is in pursuance of that authority. The measure is sanctioned by the legis- 
lature of the State within whose jurisdiction the new State is formed. 
When the new State is formed its consent can be given, and then all the 
requirements of the Constitution are complied with. I have been unable 
to perceive any point on which the act of Congress conflicts with the Con- 
stitution. By the erection of the new State the geographical boundary 
heretofore existing between the free and slave States will be broken, and 
the advantage of this, upon every point of consideration, surpasses all 
objections which have occurred to me on the question of expediency. 

"Many prophetic dangers and evils might be specified, but it is safe 
to suppose that those who come after us will be as wise as ourselves, and 
if what we deem evils be really such, they will be avoided. The present 
good is real and substantial; the future may safely be left in the care of 
those whose duty and interest may be involved in any possible future 
measures of legislation." 

One or two extracts from the opinion of Mr. Welles will indicate the 
course of his argument in the negative : 

" Under existing necessities an organization of the loyal citizens, or of a 
portion of them, has been recognized and its Senators and Representatives 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa 91 



admitted to seats in Congress. Yet we can not close our eyes to the fact 
that the fragment of the State which in the revolutionary tumult has insti- 
tuted the new organization is not possessed of the records, archives, sym- 
bols, and traditions or capital of the Commonwealth. Though calling 
itself the State of Virginia, it does not assume the debts and obligations 
contracted prior to the existing difficulties. Is this organization, then, 
really and in point of fact anything else than a provisional government 
for the State? It is composed almost entirely of those loyal citizens who 
reside beyond the mountains and within the prescribed limits of the pro- 
posed new State. In this revolutionary period, there being no contes- 
tants, we are compelled to recognize the organization as Virginia. Whether 
that would be the case, and how the question would be met and disposed 
of were the insurrection this day abandoned, need not now be discussed. 
Were \'irginia or those parts of it not included in the proposed new State 
invaded and held in temporary subjection by a foreign enemy instead of 
the insurgents, the fragment of territory and population which should suc- 
cessfully repel the enemy and adhere to the Union would doubtless during 
such temporary subjection be recognized, and properly recognized, as 
Virginia. 

" When, however, this loyal fragment goes further and not only de- 
clares itself to be Virginia, but proceeds by its own act to detach itself 
permanently and forever from the Commonwealth and to erect itself 
into a new State within the jurisdiction of the State of Virginia, the ques- 
tion arises whether this proceeding is regular, legal, right, and, in honest 
good faith, conformable to and within the letter and spirit of the Consti- 
tution. Congress may admit new States into the Union, but any attempt 
to dismember or divide a State by any force or unauthorized assumption 
would be an inexpedient exercise of doubtful power, to the injury of such 
State. Were there no question of doubtful constitutionality in the move- 
ment the time selected for the division of the State is most inopportune. 
It is a period of civil commotion, when unity and concerted action on the 
part of all loyal citizens and authorities should be directed to a restoration 
of the Union and all tendencies toward disintegration and demoralization 
avoided." 

Mr. Blair's argument, also in the negative, was in part as follows: 
, "The question is only whether the State of Virginia has consented to 
the partition of her territory and the formation of that part of it called 
western Virginia into a separate State. In point of fact, it will not be 
contended that this has been done, .for it is well known that the elections 
by which the movement has been made did not take place in more than 
a third of the counties of the State, and the votes on the constitution did 
not exceed 20,000. The argumicnt for the fulfillment of the constitutional 
provisions applicable to this case rests altogether on the fact that the gov- 
ernment organized at Wheeling (in which a portion of the district in which 
it is proposed to create a new State is represented with a few of the eastern 



92 Governor Francis Harrison P ierpont 

counties) has been recognized as the government of the State of Virginia 
for certain purposes by the executive and legislative branches of the Federal 
Government, and it is contended that by these acts the Federal Govern- 
ment is estopped from denying that the consent given by this government 
of Virginia to the creation of the new State is a suflficient consent within the 
meaning of the Constitution. It seems to me to be a suflficient answer to 
this argument to say: 

"First, that it is 'confessedly merely technical, and assumes, unwar- 
rantably, that the qualified recognition which has been given to the govern- 
ment at Wheeling for certain temporary purposes precludes the Federal 
Government from taking notice of the fact that the Wheeling government 
represents much less than half the people of Virginia when it attempts to 
dismember the State permanently. Or, second, that the present demand 
of itself proves the previous recognitions relied on to enforce it to be erro- 
neous, for, unquestionably, the fourth article of the Constitution prohibits 
the formation of a new State within the jurisdiction of an old one without 
the actual consent of the old State; and if it be true that we have so dealt 
with a third part of the people of Virginia as that to be consistent we should 
now permit that minority to divide the State, it does not follow that we 
should persist, but, on the contrary, it demonstrates that we have here- 
tofore been wrong; and if consistency is insisted on and is deemed necessary, 
we should recede from the positions heretofore taken. As to the expediency 
of the measure, I do not think it either necessary to recede from those posi- 
tions or proper to take the new step insisted on now. There is no positive 
prohibition in the Constitution against the action taken by the Senate and 
House of Representatives in relation to the recognition of the Wheeling 
government or in relation to the action taken by the Executive, and all that 
can be said, if we reject the claim of the Wheeling government to represent 
the people of Virginia for the purpose now under consideration, will be 
that it admits our previous action to have been irregular. 

"The answer to this is that, if not regular, it was substantially just, 
and the circumstances of the case excuse the irregularity. For it was 
proper that the loyal people and the State of Virginia should be repre- 
sented in Congress, and the representation allowed was not greater than 
their numbers entitled them to. But whilst it was just to the people of 
western Virginia, whose country was not overrun by the rebel armies, to 
allow this representation, and for this purpose and for the purposes of local 
government to recognize the state government instituted by them, it would 
be very unjust to the loyal people in the greater part of the State, who are 
now held in subjection by rebel armies, and who far exceed in number the 
20,000 who have voted on the constitution for western Virginia, to permit 
the dismemberment of their State without their consent." 

The opinion of Attorney-General Bates was long and elaborate, and 
only a small part of it can be quoted here to show the course and spirit 
of his argument in the negative: 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa 93 

" We all know — everybody knows — that the government of Virginia 
recognized by Congress and the President is a government of necessity, 
formed by that power which lies dormant in every people, which, though 
known and recognized, is never regulated by law, because its exact uses 
and the occasions for its use can not be foreknown, and it is called into 
exercise by the great emergency which, overturning the regular govern- 
ment, necessitates its action without waiting for the details and forms 
which all regular governments have. 

"It is intended only to counteract the treacherous perversion of the 
ordained powers of the State, and stands only as a political nucleus around 
which the shattered elements of the old Commonwealth may meet and 
combine, in all its original proportions, and be restored to its legitimate 
place in the Union. It is a provisional government, proper and necessary 
for the legitimate object for which it was made and recognized. That 
object was not to divide and destroy the State, but to rehabilitate and 
restore it. That government of Virginia, so formed and so recognized, 
does not and never did, in fact, represent and govern more than a small 
fraction of the State — perhaps a fourth part. And the legislature which 
pretends to give the consent of Virginia to her own dismemberment is (as I 
am credibly informed) composed chiefly, if not entirely, of men who repre- 
sent those forty-eight counties which constitute the new State of West 
Virginia. The act of consent is less in the nature of a law than of a con- 
tract. It is a grant of power, an agreement to be divided. And who 
made the agreement, and with whom? The representatives of the forty- 
eight counties with themselves! Is that fair dealing? Is that honest legis- 
lation? Is that a legitimate exercise of a constitutional power by the legis- 
lature of Virginia ? It seems to me that it is a mere abuse, nothing less than 
attempted secession, hardly veiled under the flimsy forms of law." 

Between the conflicting and evenly balanced counsel the de- 
ciding opinion of President Lincoln becomes doubly interesting. 
The. complete document reads as follows. Mr. Lincoln made a 
memorandum when he signed it, and it is worth listening to. 
He wrote : 

The consent of the legislature of Virginia is constitutionally necessary 
to the bill for the admission of West Virginia becoming a law. A body 
claiming to be such legislature has given its consent. We can not well 
deny that it is such, unless we do so' upon the outside knowledge that the 
body was chosen at elections in which a majority of the qualified voters 
of Virginia did not participate. But it is a universal practice in the popular 
elections in all these States to give no legal consideration whatever to those 
who do not choose to vote as against the effect of the votes of those who do 
choose to vote. Hence it is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters 
who choose to vote, that constitute the political power of the State. 



94 Governor Francis Harrison P ierpont 

A very profound observation, applicable to many aspects of 

our contemporaneous politics of to-day. A man who does not 

vote is not in a position to complain about anything that has 

been done on a subject. 

Much less than to nonvoters should any consideration be given to those 
who did not vote in thjs case, because it is also a matter of outside knowl- 
edge that they were not merely neglectful of their rights under and duty 
to this Government, but were also engaged in open rebellion against it. 
Doubtless among these nonvoters were some Union men whose voices were 
smothered by the more numerous secessionists, but we know too little of 
their number to assign them any appreciable value. Can this Government 
stand if it indulges constitutional constructions by which men in open 
rebellion against it are to be accounted, man for man, the equals of those 
who maintain their loyalty to it ? 

There was a habit of Abraham Lincoln's mind that no other 
mind except possibly that of the old Greek, Socrates, has ex- 
hibited — the art, by a simple question, of reaching the heart of 
a controversy. Now, listen to what he said: 

Are they to be accounted even better citizens and more worthy of con- 
sideration than those who merely neglect to vote? If so, their treason 
against the Constitution enhances their constitutional value. Without 
braving these absurd conclusions we can not deny that the body which con- 
sents to the admission of West Virginia is the legislature of Virginia. I do 
not think the plural form of the words "legislatures" and "States" in the 
phrase of the Constitution "without the consent of the legislatures of the 
States concerned," etc., has any reference to the new State concerned. 
That plural form sprang from the contemplation of two or more old States 
contributing to form a new one. The idea that the new State was in danger 
of being admitted without its own consent was not provided against,- 
because it was not thought of as I conceive. It is said the devil takes care 
of his own. Much more should a good spirit — the spirit of the Constitution 
and the Union — take care of its own. I think we can not do less than live. 

But is the admission into the Union of West A^irginia expedient? This, 
in my general view, is more a question for Congress than for the Executive. 
Still I do not evade it. More than on anything else, it depends on whether 
the admission or rejection of the new State would, under all the circum- 
stances, tend the more strongly to the restoration of the national authority 
throughout the Union. That which helps most in this direction is the most 
expedient at this time. Doubtless those in remaining Virginia would 
return to the Union, so to- speak, less reluctantly without the division of the 
old State than with it, but I think we could not save as much in this quarter 
by rejecting the new State as we should lose by it in West Virginia. We 



Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 95 

can scarcely dispense with the aid of West Virginia in this struggle; much 
less can we afford to have her against us in'Congress and in the field. Her 
brave and good men regard her admission into the Union as a matter of 
life and death. They have been true to the Union under very severe 
trials. We have so acted as to justify their hopesr and we can not fully 
retain their confidence and cooperation if we seem to break faith with 
them. In fact, they could not do so much for us, if they would. Again, 
the admission of the new State turns that much slave soil to free, and thus 
is a certain and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the rebellion. 
The division of a State is dreaded as a precedent. But a measure made 
expedient by a war is no precedent for times of peace. It is said that the 
admission of West Virginia is secession and tolerated only because it is our 
secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still difference enough 
between secession against the Constitution and secession in favor of the 
Constitution. I believe the admission of West Virginia into the Union is 
expedient. 

When you celebrate your fiftieth anniversary you can exhibit 
the handwriting of the man who has had more to do with the 
progress of modern civiUzation than any other man who has 
lived in the world in these latter centuries. 

So the old State of Virginia has lost a good deal, and yet 
not so much as it expected to lose. State lines are now less 
important as to our commerce than they were then. It makes 
very little difference in the commerce of a commtmity where 
the state line is. I said once, when I was younger, and I have 
never had a good opportunity to take it back until now, that 
a state line is not nearly so important in a practical sense as 
is a line fence in the United States. I have very little interest 
in state rights, although I find myself acquiring a very large 
interest in state duties and state opportunities to serve the 
community. The old State lost a good deal. One thing they 
lost, and that was the hardiest and bravest and finest little 
community in the world. They were a choice lot, these hardy 
Scotch-Irish men of the mountains and valleys of old Virginia. 
They loved the old Commonwealth. One of the old farmers 
said in the convention that it broke his heart to think of not 
including Mount Vernon in the new State. He said he did not 



96 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

think that he could live in this world with the grave of Wash- 
ington outside of the boundaries of the State in which he had 
been born. They had a love for the old traditions as tender 
as the love of a woman; yet they had their grievances, and 
they made up their minds to defend their rights. 

History sometimes reads almost like a satire on human 
.affairs. It has been said that He who sitteth in the heavens 
sometimes laughs at what is going on here in the world. If 
that is so, what a jocose aspect this drama of the secession 
of the States from the Union must have had. The Union of 
these States was not made by constitutions or by laws. God 
made this nation when He made this continent, and it is no 
more possible to destroy it than it was possible to turn the 
rivers in it back on their sources or cut our mountain ranges 
in two. That is the reason that love for the Union was so 
common all over Virginia, whatever the vote was on the sub- 
ject of secession; that is the reason why men cast their lot 
with the old State, with tears running down their cheeks; 
that is the reason why clear down to Louisiana there were 
whole parishes and communities of men who were willing to 
fight for the Union; that is the reason why the mountaineers 
of Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia, rising up as one 
man, prevented the dissolution of the Union. Those men 
were mad who undertook to turn aside the purpose of God 
to make one nation on this continent. I do not impeach 
their motives; it is not necessary, and it is not becoming to 
do so. Men do not take their lives in their hands without 
good motives; but they were mad; they were unable to see 
the direction of the world's greatest affairs. 

The nation is not a political institution, but it is a moral 
personality, exactly as a person is, and you might just as 
well undertake to take apart the arms and legs and vital 
organs of a man, in order to get a better situation for him in 



Address of Mr. Dolliver , of Iowa 97 

this world, as to undertake to divide this moral personality 
which constitutes the life of our institutions on this continent. 

When the State of West Virginia left the old State, her 
people did not know it at the time, but they took with them 
not only one-third of the population, but a storehouse of 
natural wealth and resources unknown anywhere else in the 
world. This population of hardy farmers, digging a little 
coal to burn, who, out of their love for the Union, established 
a new Commonwealth, have seen in the last fifty years grow 
up in West Virginia an industrial civilization that is the pride 
and the glory not only for the young Commonwealth, but of 
all the sister States of the Union. Her population has in- 
creased; her system of education has been enlarged; schools 
and newspapers and all the instrumentalities of civilization 
have flourished among that p'eople, and to-day the young 
Commonwealth rivals the older States of the Union in the 
prospects of its material advancement and prosperity. 

I congratulate the State that in picking out somebodv for 
honor and everlasting fame in this Capitol they have chosen 
a man so representative of the life that is lived in those moun- 
tains — a humble sort of man, hardly to be called great, as 
that word is used by historians and novelists, but great in 
the large sense that he had the heart and the brain to inter- 
pret the events of his own time and to lead his people in the 
direction of happiness, safety, and prosperity. [Applause on 
the floor and in the galleries.] 

49963° — 10 7 



Address of Mr. Heyburn, of Idaho 

J. 

Mr. President: The tribute tfiat lias been paid to the State 
of West Virginia and to the man who more than any other 
stands for the State as its sponsor has been so eloquent, so full 
of history and of wise conclusions drawn from it, that I am 
embarrassed to know just what may be added to those remarks. 

Statues of marble are not carved as monuments to the deeds 
of men or their accomplishments; they are carved to perpetuate 
the personal figure of the man responsible for the deed. It is 
difficult, in selecting from among the men who have been iden- 
tified with the life of a nation, a community, or an epoch, to 
determine who shall best stand for the great conditions to be 
represented. We have in this carved marble the personal ap- 
pearance, the image of Governor PierponT; but there are 
monuments to Governor Pierpont that stand beyond the walls 
of this Capitol that will in all time, even after the marble figure 
has crumbled or been broken, pay an immortal tribute to that 
man's actions. 

The geographical lines that mark the State of West Virginia 
upon the face of the earth are an enduring monument that will 
not fade while this Government lives. The civilization that 
marks the State of West Virginia and distinguishes it among 
the States of the Union is the real monument to the memory of 
Governor Pierpont. 

I recall no man in history who undertook a greater, a more 
difficult, and more uncertain duty than was undertaken by 
Governor Pierpont in the hour in which he wrote that beau- 
tiful letter to his wife. Impressed as he was in that hour by the 

99 



lOO Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

responsibility that he had assumed, his first thought went out 
to the sharer of his responsibilities as well as the joys of his 
life. That letter, in the minds of men, is a monument to the 
character of the man than which no better or greater monument 
will ever be erected. 

To assume the duties of governor of the State of Virginia in 
that hour was an heroic deed that is unsurpassed in the history 
of this or any other country. To undertake to maintain a state 
government that should be true and loyal to the Union in that 
hour within its borders required more courage than was pos- 
sessed by the soldiers who went there from without its borders 
to defend it. Not only the duties, but the responsibilities 
undertaken by Governor Pierpont when he assumed his duties 
as governor of Virginia — the whole State of Virginia — were almost 
beyond possible comprehension in this hour. 

It must be borne in mind that when he was appointed governor 
the boundaries of Virginia included West Virginia. His home 
was in that portion of Virginia that is now West Virginia. He 
went out from that honie into the very camp of the enemy of 
his State and of his country; set up a state government in the 
little town of Alexandria, and he maintained it there on the very 
firing line of the rebellion during all the years of that war. 
When peace came he dared to take the capital of the State into 
the old capital of the rebellion ; he held it there ; and maintained 
there the government of the State of Virginia for three years 
after the war. That was as heroic a deed as any man ever did 
in the history of a nation. While peace had been compelled, 
yet the sentiment of the war and the sentiment of opposition 
to the Union was there in Richmond, Va., when this hero 
steadily maintained the duties and the dignities of a State. 

I can not understand why men should stammer in identifying 
Governor Pierpont with those great events. After I had been 
requested to participate in these ceremonies I took up the 



Address of Mr. Heyburn, of Idaho loi 



history of that hour as it was written in the journals of that 
day, and I found there written articles denouncing this man 
around his home and his official place of business that are as 
startling as anything in the history of this country. There had 
been no reconciliation in that city of Richmond during those 
times until the officers of the United States went down there 
in their capacity as military commanders to support him in his 
efforts. It was a trying situation and his life was daily in 
jeopardy. 

This is the man to whom to-day we do honor. We place his 
image in the Capitol as a reminder so long as it may stay there 
as an index to true patriotism, and no man will hereafter pass 
through that hall and gaze upon that statue without either 
remembering or inquiring who Governor Pierpont was. That is 
the highest function that this statue will perform. It matters 
but little to the individual whether or not his statue or his image 
shall stand in a prominent place when he is, as was Governor 
Pierpont, absorbed in the performance of a high duty without 
hope of reward. 

When West Virginia became one of the States of the Union 
he did not enter the political field in contest for office ; he retired 
to his home and, with two exceptions, did not leave it except 
for his own pleasure. 

He was appointed to high position by the President of the 
United States, and filled the office to the satisfaction of the 
people. Then he returned to the home of his early selection, 
and there, until a very few years ago, he resided. He died in 
the city of Pittsburg, where he was temporarily visiting with 
his daughter, but his body was carried back to the soil of the 
State that owed its existence, in a large measure, to his patri- 
otism, his intelligence, and his endeavor, there to rest, I trust; 
under such a monument as will make it impossible for the people 



I02 Governor Francis H arrison Pier pout 

of that State ever at all to be led to inquire who was this man 
whose grave is thus marked. 

It is proper that the eulogies pronounced upon this occasion 
should come rather from those who have been identified with 
the State. The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Dolliver], who was born 
within the State, has paid a tribute so beautiful and so impress- 
ive as to convince us that he has not forgotten the lessons that 
he gathered from the surroundings of his childhood. The senior 
Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Elkins], in glowing terms has 
told us of the endearment in which the people of West Virginia 
hold this man's memory. He occupies the relation to that 
State that was occupied by the founders of this Nation, and I 
know that it needs not the ceremonies of this hour to impress 
it upon the minds of the people not only of West Virginia, but of 
all the country, that, the man to whose memory we pay this 
tribute to-day is worthy of it, as worthy as was ever any man 
whose memory was thus recognized and commemorated. 



Address of Mr. Oliver, of Pennsylvania 
J- 

Mr. President : The story of the formation of West Virginia 
is one of the romances of American history. The ordinance of 
secession was passed in the Virginia convention, despite the 
almost unanimous protest of the delegates from the transmoun- 
tain counties, on the 17th day of April, 1861. Only five days 
later twelve hundred citizens of Harrison County met in mass 
convention at Clarksburg and issued a jcall to the people of the 
counties of northwestern Virginia to appoint delegates of "their 
wisest, best, and most discreet men," to assemble in convention 
at Wheeling on the 13th day of May ensuing, "to consult and 
determine upon such action as the people of northwestern Vir- 
ginia should take in the fearful emergency." The convention 
which assembled in response to this call contained representa- 
tives from twenty-six counties. It remained in session three 
days and adopted a series of resolutions nullifying the ordinance 
of secession and calhng upon the people, in the event of its rati- 
fication, to appoint delegates to a general convention, to meet 
at Wheeling on the nth of June, "to devise such measures and 
take such action as the safety of the people they represent may 
demand." This second convention met on the day appointed. 
It contained ninety-nine delegates, representing thirty-one coun- 
ties. Within three days of assembhng it declared all acts of the 
convention and executive, tending to separate the Common- 
wealth of Virginia from the United States, to be without author-- 
ity and void, and the offices of all who adhered to the said con- 

103 



I04 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

vention and executive, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, 
to be vacated. It promptly adopted an ordinance for the reor- 
ganization of the state government, and by a unanimous vote 
chose Francis Harrison Pierpont, one of its own members, 
as governor of Virginia, with a full corps of state officers, to serve 
for six months, or until their successors should be elected and 
qualified. On the 22d of May following, Governor Pierpont 
was elected by the people for the unexpired term of Governor 
Letcher, and in May, 1863, at an election held in those counties 
of eastern Virginia occupied by the Federal Army, for the full 
term of four years, from January i , 1 864. 

From a strictly legal standpoint it is hard to justify the move- 
ment by which the Pierpont government was set up, although 
able arguments to the contrary were presented to the conven- 
tion. It was revolution, pure and simple, and it required success 
to make it even respectable; it was justified by the dire emer- 
gency which confronted the loyal people of West Virginia, and 
by that alone. It met with that measure of success which made 
it not only respectable, but illustrious, and it is a curious fact 
that the present government of the Old Dominion traces its title 
through the usurper Pierpont, and not through the legitimist 
Letcher. 

The government headed by Pierpont called itself the restored 
government of Virginia, and under his able guidance gave its 
full support to the administration of President Lincoln and to 
the movement to erect a new State out of the transmountain 
counties. PiERPONT himself was the logical man for governor 
of the new Commonwealth and would doubtless have been 
chosen for that place had he so desired; but it seemed to him 
that his duty pointed toward the maintenance of at least the 
semblance of a loyal government for old Virginia, now wholly 
given over to the rebellion, except where her soil was occupied 
by the federal troops. He therefore, upon the establishment of 



Address of Mr. Oliver, of Pennsylvania 105 



the new State, moved his capital to Alexandria, and, after the 
Union forces occupied Richmond, to that city, where he served 
until superseded by the miUtary governor, General H. H. Wells, 
in the spring of 1868. 

It was in his administration of the government of Virginia 
after the fall of Richmond that the full strength of Governor 
PiERPONT's character came out. He found himself, in the midst 
of a hostile population, governor of a Commonwealth of which 
he was no longer even a citizen. The United States marshal' 
was instituting proceedings looking to the confiscation of the 
property of all participants in the rebellion. Governor PiER- 
PONT protested vigorously against all such proceedings and set 
his face resolutely in the direction of conciliation and pacifica- 
tion. He recommended for pardon all who appHed to him. 
With the meager funds at his disposal he rehabilitated as best 
he could the charitable institutions of the State, which were 
destitute, and for three years governed with a wisdom and 
moderation beyond praise. After surrendering his office in 1868 
he returned to his old home at Fairmont, where he spent the 
remaining thirty years of his life in dignified and honorable 
retirement. 

Mr. President, West Virginia does well to honor PierponT. 
He was born within her borders. With the exception of the 
five years spent as governor — first at Alexandria, and then at 
Richmond— he lived there all his long life. His body lies 
buried beneath her soil. It is somewhat of an anomaly that, 
although he is rightly called the Father of West Virginia, he 
never held office under her government, except to serve one 
term as a member of the legislature. His Americanism was 
not merely typical; it was ideal. He was not a brilliant man 
as that phrase is usually accepted, but he possessed that "sav- 
ing grace of common sense" which, in the crises of men and 
of nations, is better far than genius. He had that serene poise 



io6 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

which fits men for any emergency, no matter how grave; and 
above all and beyond all, he had a high and unflinching integ- 
rity, personal and political, which flattery could not cajole and 
no temptation could seduce. He would neither do wrong him- 
self nor tolerate it in those around him. In his later years it 
was his proud bo'ast that in his three years' administration at 
Richmond he restored stable government to Virginia without 
a whisper of scandal or even a suspicion of that corruption which 
unfortunately stained the annals of so many Southern States 
during that trying period. West Virginia does well, indeed, to 
place him among the immortals; and of all that silent but illus- 
trious company amongst whom his image stands for all time as 
the tribute of a grateful Commonwealth, some there are, doubt- 
less, who in life surpassed him in the splendor of their achieve- 
ments, but not one excelled him in the strength and vigor of his 
integrity or has left to his children a more stainless name. 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia 



Mr. President : All students of history are familiar with the 
memorable events which led to the admission into the Union 
of the aggregation of counties west of the Allegheny Mountains 
in Virginia as a separate State. During the stirring times from 
April 19, 1 86 1, when the Old Dominion withdrew from the 
Union, until December 31, 1862, when President Lincoln rati- 
fied the action of Congress admitting West Virginia to the sis- 
terhood of States, none took a more prominent part and none 
labored more zealously and with more patriotic ardor for the 
Union than did Francis H. PiERPONT, governor of the restored 
government of Virginia, and one of the fathers of the mountain 
State of West Virginia. 

Governor PiERPonT was born in Monongalia County, Vir- 
ginia, now a part of West Virginia, June 25, 18 14. His early 
life was spent on a farm; but at the age of 22 he entered Alle- 
gheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, and in June, 1840, he 
graduated from that institution. He afterwards taught school 
in Mississippi, studying law in his spare moments, and was admit- 
ted to practice in Fairmont, Marion County, at which place 
he built up a lucrative law practice. Though he left there tem- 
porarily at different times, Fairmont remained his home there- 
after. He died, however, in Pittsburg, at the home of his only 
daughter, in March, 1899. 

Having been educated in the North, where he was closely 
associated with northern people and imbued with northern 

107 



io8 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

ideas, Governor PierponT was naturally opposed to human 
slavery, and his convictions, intense and deep-rooted, found 
voice on every occasion when the opportunity presented. Ever 
alive to the questions of the day, Governor Pierpont took an 
active part in the discussion of all public issues. He commenced 
his career as a public speaker in the college halls, and at one 
time there were few platform speakers his equal in the State. 
Concerning his ability as a speaker and as a man, the Intelli- 
gencer, of Wheeling, West Virginia, a strong advocate of the 
Union, published the following May 6, 1861: 

FRANK PIERPONT'S SPEECH. 

Frank Pierpont is one of those men well fitted for the stormy and revo- 
lutionary times that are upon us. He has the moral, physical, and mental 
power of a leader. A truer man to the cause of the Union, in our opinion, 
does not live; and he has that vigor of apprehension, that incisiveness of 
speech, and that indomitable will and courage that carries the people with 
him. His speech on Saturday, although by no means illustrative of his 
capacity, suffering, as he was, from cold and hoarseness, was very strong 
and impressive, and was eagerly listened to throughout its entire length 
by the people. 

He is doing a glorious work in the mountain counties, and is worthy to be 
the colleague of such men as Carlisle, Dent, Burdett, Brown, the editors 
of the Grafton Virginian, the Clarksburg Guard, and others of the noble 
army that are rescuing western Virginia from the hands of the traitorous 
spoilers. Western Virginia, when she comes to be a State by herself, as 
we most devoutly hope she may ere long, will owe a debt of gratitude to 
these men not easily repaid. 

Governor Pierpont was really the father of the idea of form- 
ing West Virginia, and it is perhaps not giving him too much 
credit to say that had it not been for his foresight there might 
not have been a West Virginia. 

Nothing is more interesting at this time than an article writ- 
ten by Noah S. Reader in the Wellsburg Record. This graph- 
ically describes the situation in the western part of Virginia, 
and tells of Governor Pierpont having been in four of the prin- 
cipal counties and everywhere he had been asking what the 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia 109 

Union people could do. He expected advice himself, but instead 
found that the Unionists were coming to him for advice. He 
simply said, "Hold on to the Union." Mr. Reader then de- 
scribes how in this depressed state of mind he went to his office 
and took down the Constitution of the United States. Audibly 
he said: "Old Constitution, I will give you one more reading." 
He does not know why he had not done it before, but he com- 
menced at the preamble, carefully reading article by article 
and section by section until he came to the section which pro- 
vides that — 

The Government of the United States shall guarantee a republican form 
of government to each State in the Union, repel invasion, and suppress 
insurrection and rebellion when called on by the legislature or by the gov- 
ernor if the legislature can not be convened in time. 

When he got through the section he sprang to his feet, threw 
the book with force on the table, and exclaimed, "I have got 
you!" He walked the floor for a few minutes in brisk step, 
and in less than a minute the whole proceedings of the con- 
vention, its representation, the declaring of all offices held by 
secessionists vacant, representation in Congress, and division 
of the State passed before him like a panorama. He went into 
his house and told his wife that it was clear. He met one of his 
neighbors on the street and remarked to him, "It will all come 
out right." He knew at that stage that success could only be 
had by secrecy. 

This was prior to the meeting held at Wheeling on the nth 
of May, and it was at this meeting that Governor Pierpont 
presented his resolution for calling a delegate convention to 
meet in Wheeling on the 13th day of June and to appoint a 
committee of safety, whose duty it was to direct the manner of 
electing these members to attend and such other affairs as they 
deemed necessary for the Union cause. And it was after these 
resolutions had been adopted and the committee of safety ap- 



no Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

pointed that he was asked for his plan of action and explained 

it as follows: 

On principle the loyal people of the State are entitled to the protection 
of the laws of the States and United States. When our convention assem- 
bles I have no doubt we will know that the governor of the State has 
joined the southern confederacy. The convention will pass resolutions 
declaring, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, that " he 
has abdicated his office by joining a foreign state," and that it is the right 
of this convention to appoint a governor and lieutenant-governor and 
pass such other ordinances as are necessary to turn out of office all dis- 
loyal men and to fill them by loyal men, and do anything else that may 
be necessary. Our actions must go to the whole State. We will call the 
legislature together immediately, if necessary. You observe the conven- 
tion is composed of double the number of delegates of the lower house. It 
may be we will need a legislature and convention both at once. We will 
elect Senators to fill the places made vacant by resignation of Hunter and 
Mason. We will commission our members elected and send them to Con- 
gress. The governor will call upon the President for military aid to sup- 
press the rebellion. In the meantime we will get the United States Army 
to occupy the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys, drive the rebels beyond 
the mountains, and we will organize below. Now, if we carry out this 
programme, we will represent the State of Virginia and divide the State 
by the consent of Congress and the consent of the legislature of Virginia. 

His programme was, in the main, carried out. Delegates 
attended that convention from forty counties lying west of 
the Blue Ridge Mountains. He was the representative from 
Marion County. Recognizing his sterling qualities as a man, 
a lawyer, a statesman, and a loyal citizen, the convention of 
June II, 1 86 1, unanimously elected him provisional governor 
of the reorganized State of Virginia, and Daniel Polsley, of 
Mason County, was elected lieutenant-governor. Within a 
year Governor PierponT was elected by the people governor 
of Virginia under the "restored government." Two years 
later he was reelected governor for a term of four years, hav- 
ing undisputed sovereignty over the people in the territory 
west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Meanwhile he gave his 
powerful aid to the movement for the creation of a new State, 
and after the admission of West Virginia into the Union in 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia iii 

1863 he removed the seat of government of Virginia to Alex- 
andria. Following the surrender of General Lee at Appo- 
mattox, Governor PierponT transferred his headquarters to 
Richmond, being most cordially greeted there by many of 
his fellow-citizens who four years before had cast their for- 
tunes with the South. Within a few months he completely 
restored the functions of the state government, and it is worthy 
to be noted that there was never a suspicion of dishonesty or 
misdeed attaching to his administration. No man, it was said, 
could ever be appointed to office under Governor PierponT 
who did not possess the moral and intellectual qualifications 
for the position. Nearly the entire judiciary was changed, 
and it was said by the men and newspapers of that day that 
he gave Virginia the best judiciary the Commonwealth ever 
had. He was the first governor of Virginia, it is also stated, 
who ever issued a Thanksgiving proclamation. As the war 
governor of Virginia he was the steadfast friend of President 
Lincoln, who recognized him as a valuable and able supporter 
of his administration. 

Although active in politics and a man of power and influence, 
Governor Pierpont held public position but seldom. At the 
expiration of his term as governor of Virginia he returned to 
his home in Fairmont, where naturally he found a large amount 
of business that had been long neglected. He lived thereafter 
comparatively a quiet life. He served a term in the legislature 
at the earnest solicitation of his friends, was a delegate to a 
national convention of his party, and President Garfield ap- 
pointed him collector of internal revenue. He served a term 
as president of the general conference of the Methodist Prot- 
estant Church, up to that time the only layman ever chosen 
to this position. 

Governor PierponT was a large-hearted, true man, and a 
just one. His love of country was of the intense order, and 



112 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

to the support of his views he brought a fine logic which but 
few could combat. He was possessed of a wonderfully reten- 
tive memory, and was splendidly equipped legally. There is, 
perhaps, no one within the confines of the State which Gov- 
ernor PiKRPONT helped to create who does not acknowledge 
the versatilitv and clear-headed legal acumen he manifested 
in the presence of the serious problems he so successfully 
solved as a leader in the troublesome times just before and 
during the civil war. History may do but scant justice to 
this man; his fame may be perpetuated by the marble statue 
unveiled to-day, but there is a monument which bears his 
name indelibly, and that is found in the hearts of his country- 
men; there Franlcis H. Pierpont will live while the lifeblood 
flows. 

The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to the con- 
current resolution. 

The concurrent resolution was unanimously agreed to. 

Mr. Scott. Mr. President, as a further mark of respect, I 
move that the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was unanimously agreed to, and (at 3 o'clock 
and 7 minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned until Monday, 
May 2, 1 910, at 12 o'clock meridian. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



April 2, 1910. 

Mr. Sturgiss. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for 
the present consideration of the following resolution, which I 
send to the desk and ask to have read. 

The Clerk read as follows : ' 

House resolution 567. 

Resolved, That exercises appropriate to the reception and acceptance 
from the State of West Virginia of the statue of Francis H. Pierpont, 
erected in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, be made the special order for 
Saturday, April 30, 19 10, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

The Speaker. Is there objection ? 
There was no objection. 
The resolution was agreed to. 

April 30, 1910. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The hour of 3 o'clock p. m. 
having arrived, the Clerk will read the special order governing 
the business for the remainder of the day's session. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

On motion of Mr. Sturgiss, by unanimous consent — 

Resolved, That exercises appropriate to the reception and acceptance 
from the State of West Virginia of the statue of Francis H. Pierpont, 
erected in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, be made the special order for 
Saturday, April 30, 19 10, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The Chair will ask the gentle- 
man from West Virginia [Mr. Gaines] to act as Speaker pro 
tempore during the ceremonies. 

Mr. Gaines assumed the chair as Speaker pro tempore. 

49963° — 10 — — 8 113 



114 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Mr. Sturgiss. Mr. Speaker, I desire to send to the Clerk's 
desk and ask to have read a letter from the governor of West 
Virginia, addressed to both the House and the Senate. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The Clerk will read. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Charleston, W. Va., April 30, igio. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives , Washington, D. C. : 

Pursuant to action of the legislature of West Virginia, there has been 
erected in the Capitol of the United States a marble statue of the late 
Francis H. Pierpont, of West Virginia. In behalf of the people of this 
State I have the honor and the pleasure of presenting to the Govern- 
ment and the people of the United States this statue of one of the most 
famous sons of West Virginia. Governor Pierpont is known in our 
history as the great war governor of the restored government of Vir- 
ginia, and by the people of West Virginia he is held in high and affec- 
tionate esteem for the great aid he gave them in their effort to attain 
statehood. A man of simple and strenuous life, of large heart and mind, 
of strong conviction and superb courage, of high ideals and lofty char- 
acter, and of devotion to duty as he saw it, a man careful to discharge 
every obligation of the citizen, a patriot in whom there was no guile, 
and a public officer who knew and acted upon the knowledge that public 
office is created for the benefit of the people and not for the benefit of the 
officeholder, Governor Pierpont will ever stand out in our country's 
history as a heroic character in the throes attendant upon the second 
birth of the great Republic, a time that tried men's souls. 
Very respectfully, 

Wm. E. Glasscock, 
Governor of West Virginia. 

On motion of Mr. Sturgiss, by unanimous consent, Senate 

concurrent resolution No. 24 was taken from the Speaker's 

table and read as follows : 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That 
the statue of Francis H. Pierpont, presented by the State of West 
Virginia to be placed in Statuary Hall, is accepted in the name of the 
United States, and that the thanks of Congress be tendered to the State 
for the contribution of the statue of one of its most eminent citizens, 
illustrious for the purity of his life and his distinguished services to the 
State and Nation; 

Second. That a copy of these resolutions, suitably engrossed and 
duly authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of West 
Virginia. 



Address of Mr. Hubbard of West Virginia 

Mr. Speaker : In the midst of the civil war a body of people, 
long settled in the very center of the country's population and in 
its oldest Commonwealth, people who had elected to abide by 
the Union proceeded in accordance with the provisions of the 
Constitution of the United States to form the new State of West 
Virginia. The action by which this was accomplished was by 
some reckoned as revolution, but never did revolution so observe 
order or obey law. As that people seceded from secession, so 
did their revolution arrest revolution. They fought in the 
forum as well as in the field for their country and their State, and 
the laws were not silent amid the arms with which they won 
their statehood and their peace. The passions of that time have 
long since been stilled, the wisdom of that work has long been 
manifest, and all that dwell within her borders have given their 
loyalty and love to West Virginia. 

There was one man who by the people of that State has been 
considered as foremost in the work of its formation, and now 
that that State, no longer after the lapse of half a century to 
be called new, is privileged to place in yonder hall a statue of 
one of its great representatives, it puts there Francis H. Pier- 
PONT in marble no more solid than his worth, no whiter than his 
fame. 

The State formed by that statesman's genius to stand for- 
ever in the Union does well in turn to invoke the sculptor's 
genius to model the form of that statesman to stand among 
those of the great men who have founded or saved or nobly 

served other Commonwealths. 

115 



ii6 Governor Francis Harrison Pier pout 

To understand the people who did that work, and that man 
representative of them, to comprehend the political drama then 
enacted among the hills of West Virginia, we must go back even 
a century earUer to the time when on that soil the trans- Alle- 
gheny frontiersman taught the Nation the value of the indi- 
vidual. Until he subdued the wilderness, and there planted 
corn, and at the same time planted civilization, every migra- 
tion, colonization, and foundation was organized if not govern- 
mental. Whether in sacred or profane history a great move- 
ment of the people, a settlement of new land was the work of 
some government or church, some military power or commer- 
cial enterprise, of some authority. In that way, indeed, had 
been planned the settlement of the region west of the Alle- 
ghenies and along the Ohio. In England there was the Wal- 
pole Company, the Ohio Company, the Royal Company, and the 
Mississippi Company. Why, if George Washington had had his 
way — and he might have had it but for the coming of the Revo- 
lutionary war — there might have been a West Virginia a century 
earlier, and, if there had been, Washington would have been its 
first governor. 

So in America the Pilgrims, the Puritans, the Virginia Com- 
pany of London, other companies and colonies, the grantees of 
royal charters, laid the foundations of this Nation of ours. 
Under such auspices Virginia had broadened out from the coast 
to the Blue Ridge, and at that barrier had paused. Organized 
effort made one attempt to stretch yet farther. A governor 
and his followers crossed over into the Valley of Virginia, and 
for that- exploit the one was knighted by his sovereign, and the 
others were called the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. 

But from that hour the work of exploring the wilderness 
beyond and of developing the country became the work of the 
indvidual. 



Address of Mr. Hubbard, of West V irginia 117 

In the men of that region and era was a personal initiative 
greater than had been known before. By the middle of the 
eighteenth century adventurous individuals had explored south- 
western Virginia and Kentucky. A few had made their homes 
in the Valley of Virginia, but none beyond the Alleghenies. 
And then, without any encouragement by government, indeed, 
against its wish, without concert of action — a man by himself, 
or two or three together, a family far from others, or perhaps 
several grouped about a blockhouse — that people began to cross 
the crest of the Alleghenies to the headwaters of the streams 
that flowed toward the unknown, undefined, mysterious West. 
They settled upon the lands that suited their fancy in that wide 
domain of western Virginia then known as Augusta, and there 
are farms still held under titles that began in the tomahawk 
right of a pioneer ancestor. The achievements of those pioneers 
were not by the command of others; they took orders from 
their own needs and wills. They fought, but they wore no uni- 
form. They furnished their own arms and ammunition and 
equipment, their owns transportation and subsistence. Reared 
among hardships, they were physically active and tireless and 
mentally reflective rather than impulsive. 

Individual and independent, as they were, their common dan- 
gers and like tastes made it easy for them to act in unision. 
They could assemble in an army, but they must elect their own 
officers. 

They had no dread of wild beasts, savage foes, British arms; no 
fear of old habits or new ideas. They did not submit to the 
tyranny of some yesterday or the threats of any to-morrow. 

African slavery had but little place in their social structure, 
industrial system, or moral code. They would not be masters 
any more than they could be slaves. 

Among such men George Washington had his training, and 
knowing them he could say in the dark hours of the Revolution, 



Ti8 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

"Leave me but a banner to plant among the mountains of 
Augusta and I will rally round me the men who will raise our 
bleeding country from the dust and set her free." 

Prom the time of the Revolution to that of the civil war that 
people changed but little. If they did not acquire culture, they 
still possessed saving common sense. If, secluded by their 
mountain walls, they missed opportunity, they did not lose 
capacity. If their material progress was slow, their spirit re- 
mained free and their patriotism undimmed. If "they had not 
the learning of books, they had the Anglo-Saxon genius for self- 
government, for they were, as those who succeed them still are, 
of the purest strain of Anglo-Saxon blood. In these days of 
hyphenated Americans these people remain the most American 
Americans. In the Appalachian range is the largest body of 
native Americans in the country. In that mountain region, 
extending from Pennsylvania to Alabama, stretching from east 
to west 200 miles or more, is a population of millions, almost all 
whites, almost all descended from English and Scotch who had 
•settled in the colonies before the Revolution. Out of those 
mountains went into the armies of the civil war more men of 
Anglo-Saxon blood than ever followed Marlborough or Welling- 
ton. One hundred and fifty thousand of them, lovers of liberty 
and of their country, rose at the call of Lincoln and justified the 
faith he always had in those mountaineers by saving the border 
South to the Union. 

The test of that pure Americanism, of the intense patriotism 
-of the people, came in 1861. 

For many years the western part of Virginia had found irk- 
some its business and political relations with the eastern part 
of the State. It was divided from the eastern part by moun- 
tain ranges not then pierced by railroads, but no more distinctly 
divided in that way than by differing industrial and commercial 



Address of Mr. Hubbard, of West Virginia 119 



interests, by diverse modes of life and thought. Slavery and 
taxation were fruitful sources of dispute. 

The sullen warmth of resentment at supposed grievances 
blazed up into flame when the east tried to take Virginia into 
the confederacy. Not only was the banner of Washington then 
raised among the mountains of Augusta, but his thought of a 
new State then hardened into fact. Western Virginia clung to 
the Union and eastern Virginia sought to leave it. The sepa- 
ration of the two at last was inevitable. 

The men who acted for the west had not had much training 
in public life, most of them having always been in the political 
minority. Some of them at first proposed methods which were 
inconsiderate, if not rash. But the innate genius of the people 
for government manifested itself. Wiser counsels prevailed. 
Orderly methods were followed. 

A^mass convention of Union men assembled in Wheeling on 
the 13th day of May, 1861, before the popular vote on the ordi- 
nance of secession had been taken, to consult and determine 
upon their action. That convention summoned a delegated, 
constituent convention, which met on the nth day of June, 
with delegates from thirty-five counties, not all in the west. 
That later convention declared the ordinance of secession and 
other acts of the convention at Richmond attempting to put 
Virginia into the confederacy to be usurpation and treason, to 
be without authority and void; it considered the government 
at Richmond as having abandoned il^s legal functions ; it vacated 
the offices of all who adhered to that government; and there- 
upon it proceeded to reorganize the government of Virginia. 
Francis H. PiERPONT was made its governor, first by the con- 
vention and then by popular election. 

That reorganized government was recognized by all the 
departments of the United States government, and the State of 
West Virginia was admitted into the Union on the 20th day 



I20 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

of June, 1863, with the consent of the legislature of the reorgan- 
ized government of Virginia, by act of Congress signed by 
Abraham Lincoln. 

In the swift movement of events which resulted in reorgan- 
izing the government of Virginia, there was but little time, and 
perhaps little disposition, to search for historical precedents; 
but, looking back, we can now see that the Union men of Vir- 
ginia, with their instincts and genius for orderly government, 
did the same things which, under like' circumstances, had been 
done by other free peoples before them, just as we can see that 
nothing was then done which could have been better done 
otherwise. 

Three centuries ago the United Provinces of the Netherlands 
declared that they forsook Philip because he had forsaken 
them, and that they had a right to depose him and elect another 
in his room. But their government did not perish because he 
had abdicated it, and for years the Netherlands, in the name 
of Philip, waged war against Philip. 

A century later the lords and commons of England, not in 
Parliament, but in a convention, published a declaration of 
right, reciting the crimes and errors of James, and asserting 
that he had abdicated the Government. 

After yet another century our Declaration of Independence 
asserted that legislative powers are incapable of annihilation, 
and that when those intrusted with them cease to exercise 
them they may be resumed by the people, and recited the 
usurpations and wrongs because of which the united colonies 
were absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown. 

The Virginia bill of rights says the people have a right to 
peaceably assemble and alter or amend their form of govern- 
ment when it may become necessary. 

And so in still another century the loyal people of West 
Virginia annulled the acts of those who, in the name of Vir- 



Address of Mr. Hubbard, of West Virginia 121 



glnia, had violated the provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States, forbidding any State to enter into any treaty, 
alliance, or confederation or, without the consent of Congress, 
to enter into any agreement or compact with another State; 
and that loyal people went on to exercise the powers of gov- 
ernment which had been abdicated at Richmond. 

The case could not be better summed up than in the reasons 
Mr. Lincoln gave for signing the bill admitting West Virginia: 

The consent of the legislature is constitutionally necessary to this 
bill for the admission of West Virginia becoming a law. A body claim- 
ing to be such legislature has given its consent. We can not well deny 
that it is such unless we do so upon the outside knowledge that the body 
was chosen at elections in which the majority of the qualified voters did 
not participate. But it is the universal practice in popular elections in 
all these States to give no legal consideration whatever to those who 
do not choose to vote as against the efTect of the vote of those who do 
choose to vote. Hence it is not the qualified voters, but the qualified 
voters who choose to vote, that constitute the political power of the 
State. Much less than to nonvoters should any consideration be given 
to those who did not vote in this case, because it is a matter of out.side 
knowledge that they were not merely neglectful of their rights under 
and duty to this Government, but were also engaged in open rebellion 
against it. 

The movement which resulted in the formation of West 
Virginia was of the people rather than of individuals. And 
yet there were men who led and guided that movement with 
judgment and skill which has since been shown to be unerring. 
No one of them can be counted first in all respects. Some 
one must be taken, not for himself alone, but as a represent- 
ative of the others and of the great body of the people. The 
legislature of West Virginia acted wisely when they selected 
PiERPONT as that one. No man was eadier at the work which 
made the State than he, and none was about it more stead- 
fastly or longer. No one showed more courage, made more 
sacrifices, gave himself more fully. When he became gov- 
ernor the office was rather one of danger than of honor. 



122 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

But these comparisons are vain. The place in yonder hall 
is rightfully his, because he was peculiarly the type of his 
people. He was one of them by birth and by inheritance, 
by temperament, by conviction. The calm judgment of later 
years has chosen this West Virginia patriot to stand for all 
West Virginia patriots. 

In May, 1861, at the time when the Union men were assem- 
bled for consultation in the city of Wheeling, I came from 
school back to my home in that city, and I found Frank 
Pierpont as a guest in my father's house. The boyish admi- 
ration he inspired in me then was strengthened by the years 
of acquaintanceship that followed. The marvelous art of the 
sculptor tells us much of what he was, but even that can not 
tell how stalwart in body, much less how alert in mind, how 
unyielding in will, how strenuous in action. He had the 
moral, physical, and mental power of a leader; he had that 
strength of thought, that vigor of speech, that intensity of 
purpose that inspired people with courage and confidence. 
His phrase may not always have been classic or his logic per- 
fect, but his purpose, earnest and compelling, always held. 
That purpose was the formation of a new State, a purpose 
that mastered him and enabled him to master others. His 
eye saw that end from the beginning, and that purpose 
stretched to the very verge of his vision. At the opportune 
time, among the mountains of Augusta, the century-long 
dream of West Virginia became a fact, and it dims not the 
fame of any of his compatriots, brave men and true, to say 
that Pierpont was the man of the race, the place, and the 
hour. 



Address of iMr. Keifer, of Ohio 

Mr. Speaker: There was recently placed in Statuary Hall of 
this Capitol an heroic-sized marble statue of Francis H. PiER- 
PONT by the State of West Virginia, there to stand, it is to be 
hoped, as typical of a representative statesman of the now won- 
derfully progressive and prosperous, though mountainous, State 
of West Virginia— the first and only severeign separate Com- 
monwealth carved out of and created exclusively from territory 
included at one time in another sovereign State of this Union. 
It was in western Virginia in June, 1861, I first saw real war. 

Governor PiERPONT was, in a large sense, instrumental in 
creating the State of West Virginia. I leave to others who 
knew him and are familiar with his public life and character 
and also with his private virtues to here portray them fittingly, 
while I turn to the conditions existing when he emerged, under 
most trying and difficult circumstances, from an ordinary life 
of duty and responsibility as an American citizen into patriotic 
and heroic statesmanship and leadership. 

I may observe that true greatness is always coupled with vir- 
tue and duty whether found in public or private action. Great- 
ness is also always, more or less, relative, also comparative. 
Somewhere in barbaric or semibarbaric times only monsters or 
the most savage were acclaimed as great. Later, as civilization 
dawned, and even after it had somewhat emerged from dark- 
ness to enlightenment, the monster idea did not disappear, and 
even now to the less enlightened it has not, wholly disappeared. 

123 



124 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 



Heroism and duty to country, to family and to society, are, 
however, in this age always important factors in measuring 
distinction and greatness. 

Greatness means distinction above the common mass of man- 
kind generally; and it is usually confined to a man's own coun- 
try, certainly to -the community in which the distinguished per- 
son lives, or in which or for the benefit of which he acts. Of 
course there have been, chiefly in earlier times, world-wide 
celebrities who, in peace or war, in science or literature, as 
leaders, discoverers, promulgators, or otherwise have made 
themselves names and secured immortal fame. And they have 
not always secured a name and fame for what they have done 
for the happiness of the human race. Some of them will con- 
tinue in the pages of history for what they have done to sub- 
vert and oppress their fellow-men, while others whose lives 
have been humble and less ostentatious have accomplished much 
more for civiHzation and Christianity and for the universal happi- 
ness of the human race, and are therefore entitled to have first 
honors in any real or supposed hall of fame. 

Distinction may be won in a bad as well as in a just cause; 
but can fame be acquired that will permanently endure, coupled 
with honor and accompanied with the just plaudits of a Chris- 
tian world that does not rest upon great things done, or sought 
to be done, for the happiness and liberty of mankind, especially 
in the actor's own country? 

In saying that fame is relative, it should also be observed 
that it is more difficult to attain to greatness in this age of 
progressive civilization than in any former age. The competi- 
tion is more enlarged and fiercer, and the tests are more severe 
in all moral and mental points than ever before. Mere bravery 
in war or mere declamatory oratory in peace counts now for 
little. Heroism displayed on the field or on the forum where 
duty calls only stands for patriotism or high citizenship. Many 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 125 

accounted great in former times or in earlier periods of the 
growth of civiUzation would now be regarded as despicable 
characters should they appear, and they would deservedly be 
execrated, not honored. 

It always has been and always will be true that through edu- 
cation and other fortuitous circumstances more is expected and 
more is required of some persons than of others, especially than 
is required or expected of the masses of the people of a country. 
So those who have been educated and trained for the more 
important positions of responsibility in life and to occupy high 
places in the potential affairs of a nation should be justly held 
to the highest degree of responsibility in all their public acts. 

The first rays of the morning sunlight touch the crests of the 
highest mountains before they can penetrate to the richer and 
more fertile intervening valleys at their bases, and the rays of 
a setting sun are again last to fade from the same mountain 
crests at each closing day. So of the exceptional people just 
described. They are the first to receive and to become imbued 
with that light that shines for all, and they are the last from 
which it is withdrawn. Their accountability should be greater 
than those less blessed with opportunities and with favoring 
environments. 

Francis H. Pierpont, of West Virginia, whose statue we 
accept to-day for a place in the Statuary Hall of this Capitol, 
though not a soldier, nor yet an exceptional orator or states- 
man, nor specially renowned in literature, art, or science, nor 
perhaps specially in a learned profession, completely answers 
to the true test of greatness of his day and age, and his statue 
is worthily thus placed, to be maintained perpetually and 
pointed to by those who pass by as that of one who recognized 
duty and heroically performed it successfully when the rights 
and liberties of his fellow-men and'of his country were in immi- 
nent peril. 



126 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

To give a clear description of the object of adapting the old 
Hall of the House of Representatives to the purpose of a statu- 
ary hall, I will read the act originally dedicating it to that 
purpose : 

And the President is hereby authorized to invite each and all the States 
to provide and furnish statues, in marble or bronze, not exceeding two 
in number for each ^tate, of deceased persons who have been citizens thereof 
and illustrious for their historic renown or from distinguished civil or 
military service, such as each State shall determine to be worthy of this 
national commemoration; and when so furnished the same shall be 
placed in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the Capitol of the 
United States, which is hereby set apart, or so much thereof as may be 
necessary, as a national statuary hall, for the purposes herein indicated. 
(13 U. S. Laws, p. 347.) 

This legislation is a part of section 2 of a sundry civil appro- 
priation act passed in the Thirty-eighth Congress and approved 
by President Lincoln July 2, 1864, in the midst of a great 
struggle for national unity, when the Union armies were mak- 
ing their last advance in the East and West to overthrow the 
great rebellion and when the confederate forces were putting 
forward their last great .efforts to resist this advance. The 
then existing peril of this country kept in mind may help to 
determine what class of deceased citizens of the States were, 
by Congress, expected to be regarded as "illustrious for their 
historic renown or for distinguished civil or military service." 

What has been the response to the invitation from the sev- 
eral States of the Union, and who of their deceased have been 
regarded as sufficiently illustrious and worthy to be commemo- 
rated by statues in this Hall? 

Twenty-four of the now forty-six States have furnished 
statues — only forty in number. Eight States have furnished 
only one each so far. Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, and 
Virginia only of the eleven so-called Confederate States have 
furnished statues for this Hall of Fame. Twenty of the other 
States have placed statues therein. But who have been 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 127 

regarded as sufficiently illustrious to be worthy of commemora- 
tion by statues in this Plall ? 

The States which have placed in the Hall statues and the 
names of the deceased persons represented I will now give. 
After each name the years of birth and death are given : 

Alabama, J. Iv. M. Curry (1825-1903), distinguished as a 
Member of Congress of the United States, also of the confed- 
eracy ; served in the confederate army ; was United States min- 
ister to Spain and an author. 

Connecticut, Roger vSherman (i 721-1793) and Jonathan 
Trumbull (1710-1785); the former was a signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, Member of the Continental Congress, of 
the Constitutional Convention, of this House, and of the United 
States Senate. 

Trumbull was Chief Justice and governor of Connecticut in 
colonial times — the only colonial governor who espoused the 
cause of independence. 

Idaho, George ly. Shoup (1836-1904), distinguished for pioneer 
zeal and disinterested patriotism, colonel in the Union Army in 
the civil war; governor of Idaho Territory, and also of the State 
of Idaho. 

Illinois, James vShields (1810-1879) and Frances E. Willard 
(1839-1898). 

Shields was a Union officer in the Mexican war and the 
civil war; also, a statesman who ser^^ed in the United States 
Senate. 

Frances K. Willard alone of the women of that illustrious 
fame won in upbuilding her sex is so far honored by a statue in 
this Hall. She was distinguished in reform movements; was 
president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and 
editor of the Chicago Evening Post. She founded the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, also the world's Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, of which she was its corresponding 



128 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

secretary, and she was the head of purity work of the World's 
and National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

Indiana, Oliver P. Morton (1823-1877) and Lew Wallace 
(1827-1909). 

Morton was the greatest of the war governors of the civil 
war, and later a great constructive statesman, foremost in the 
United States Senate. 

Wallace was distinguished as a Union general in the civil war 
and the author of A Fair God, Ben Hur, and the Prince of India. 

Iowa, James Harlan (i 820-1 899), distinguished as a states- 
man and a man of great learning; an UL. D., United States 
Senator, and Secretary of the Interior. 

Kansas, John J. Ingalls (1833-1900), who was a lawyer, 
scholar, and statesman, the fearless peer of those with whom he 
served in the United States Senate three terms. 

Maine, William King (1768-1852), was Maine's first governor 
and always active and influential in her politics; likewise a suc- 
cessful banker and business man. 

Maryland, Charles Carroll (1737-1832), of Carrollton, and 
John Hanson (1715-1783). 

Carroll was educated by French Jesuits, was for independence 
of the colonies, was of the council of safety of his State, was a 
Member of the Continental Congress, and was the last surviving 
signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

Hanson was a patriot of the Revolution, president of the 
Continental Congress, and encouraged enlistments in the army 
in the war for independence. 

Massachusetts, Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and John Win- 
throp (1588-1649). 

Adams was a patriot of the Revolution and of special fame 
in securing the independence of the colonies and in launching 
the constitutional Government. He was governor of his State. 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 129 

Winthrop was a colonial governor of Massachusetts; an author; 
believed in evangelizing the Indians; opposed democracy, and 
believed superior minds, though always in the minority, should 
rule. 

Michigan, Lewis Cass (i 782-1 866), a statesman of just renown, 
Senator, Cabinet officer, and held other high official positions 
covering a long period of his country's history. He left the 
Cabinet of President Buchanan when secession was imminent. 

Missouri, Francis P. Blair (1821-1875) and Thomas H. Ben- 
ton (1782-1858) both of historic fame, the former as soldier in 
the civil war, and was an editor, and long in political life. 

The latter as Senator, statesman, and author, always heroic- 
ally standing with President Jackson and other great patriots 
for the Union of the States. 

New Hampshire, John Stark (1728-1822) and Daniel Web- 
ster (1782-1852). 

Stark achieved fame as a soldier in the French and Indian 
wars and in the Revolution. 

Webster, a son of New Hampshire, was a lawyer and states- 
man in his adopted State, Massachusetts. In the United States 
Senate he combated by his unanswerable arguments the doc- 
trine of the right of secession. 

New Jersey, Richard Stockton, (1730-1781) and Philip Kear- 
ney (1815-1862). 

Stockton stood for patriotism and high citizenship in the 
period of the Revolution. 

Kearney was a soldier in his country's wars and, long after 
he lost an arm in battle, he was killed at Chantilly (1862) in 
the civil war. 

New York, Robert R. Livingston (1746-18 13) and George 
Clinton (1739-1812), both early governors of New York and 
otherwise illustrious as progressive citizens. Livingston was a 
49963° — 10 — 9 



130 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

Clinton was a soldier in the French and Indian and Revolu- 
tionary wars, was a Member of the Continental Congress, sev- 
eral times governor of New York, and was Vice-President of 
the United States. 

Ohio, James A. Garfield (1831-1881) and William Allen 
(1807- 1879). 

Garfield was a scholar, major-general of volunteers in the 
civil war, statesman with long service in this House, and was 
President of the United States and illustrious in all capacities. 
Allen was Senator and once governor of Ohio, and he commanded 
the confidence of his political party during a long public life. 
The former fought and the other merely acquiesced in the war 
for the Union. 

Pennsylvania, J. P. G. Muhlenberg (1746-1807) and Robert 
Fulton (1765-1815). 

Muhlenberg was an early distinguished minister of the gospel 
of Virginia and Pennsylvania, was a colonel in the Revolution, 
and fought under Generals Wayne and Washington, and served 
in this House in the First, Third, and Sixth Congresses. 

Fulton's fame rests largely on his adaptation of steam power 
to propelling boats and ships. A great continental celebration 
has just been held (1909) in New York City in his honor. 

Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene (i 742-1786) and Roger Wil- 
liams (1599-1683). 

Greene was a Revolutionary general of renown. Roger Wil- 
liams was an early Puritan pioneer minister of the gospel in 
the colonies and among the Indians, famed for his zeal and 
ability, especially in the cause of religious liberty. He was the 
founder of Providence and Rhode Island. 

South Carolina, John C. Calhoun (1782-1850), the most dis- 
tinguished exponent of so-called states rights and of slavery and 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 131 

its extension, which inevitably and necessarily culminated in 
secession, rebellion, and the civil war. He was the father of 
a school of earnest men who believed secession was warranted 
by the Constitution of the United States, at least permissible 
under it, because not expressly forbidden, and who believed 
that the Constitution did not provide for its own perpetuation 
or for the preservation of the Union of the States, and that it 
was therefore constitutional to destroy the one and to over- 
throw the other, this though he had long contended that the 
Constitution made slavery lawful wherever it extended over 
United States territory. He did not live to see the baneful 
result of his doctrine and the overthrow of human slavery. 

Texas, Stephen F. Austin (1790-1836) and Samuel Houston 
(1793-1863). 

Austin was a Texas revolutionist and did much to wrest 
Texas from Mexico. 

Houston was specially distinguished for his successful efforts 
in liberating Texas from Mexico, also as a general and states- 
man, as President of the Republic of Texas, and as governor 
of Texas, Member of this House, and for his loyalty to the Union 
against his State. 

Vermont, Ethan Allen (1737-1789) and Jacob Collamer 
(1791-1865). 

Allen was of Revolutionary fame. He demanded and re- 
ceived the surrender of Ticonderoga "in the name of the Con- 
tinental Congress and the Great Jehovah." For three years 
he was a captive with the British. 

Collamer was an illustrious statesman of marked ability. 
He was a member of the assembly of his State, a justice of 
its supreme court, Member of this House, Postmaster-General, 
and he died a United States Senator. 

Virginia, George Washington (i 732-1 799) and Robert E. 
Lee (1807- 1 870). 



132 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Washington's illustrious life can not be added to by recital 
or comment. His character surpasses eulogy. When the Con- 
stitution of the United States was adopted in convention and 
was ready for ratification by the States he, as president of 
the convention, in his letter of submission dated September 
17, 1787, said: - 

In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in view that 
which appears to us the greatest interest to every American, the con- 
solidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, 
safety, perhaps our national existence. 

Lee was an officer in the United States Army of high char- 
acter when the southern confederacy was formed (February 8, 
1 861). The day (March 5, 1861) after Lincoln was inaugu- 
rated President he registered himself in the Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's office as "brevet colonel and lieutenant-colonel Second 
Cavalry." Lee's oath to his commission as lieutenant-colonel 
bears date March 15, 1861, and promises that he would bear 
true allegiance to the United States of America and to serve 
them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies, and to 
obey the orders of the President and of the officers appointed 
over him. President Lincoln nominated him March 21, 1861, 
as colonel First Cavalry, and the Senate confirmed him as such 
March 23, 1861. On March 25, 1861, he was commissioned 
colonel by the President, to take rank from March 16, 1861, 
and he received the commission March 28, 1861, and accepted 
it by letter March 30, 1861. Though as late as April 20, 1861, 
after Sumter had fallen, he wrote his sister, "I recognize no 
necessity for this state of things," he resigned from the United 
States Army and joined the then incipient confederacy and 
became its greatest military leader. The fact that his State, 
as he says in the letter referred to, "after a long struggle had 
been drawn" into a "state of revolution," and his thereafter 
becoming a great army commander, and that he always bore 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 133 

an unblemished character and lived a pure life did much to 
palliate his abandonment of the United States Army and of 
his country in its day of need. The light that dawned on 
him did not, however, cause him to regard his country's exist- 
ence of first importance and of "the greatest interest to every 
American" as did George Washington. For the mass of 
those who followed in general their leaders there is more ex- 
cuse. Many had really no choice but to go with those who 
were their natural leaders. 

Wisconsin, James Marquette (i 637-1 675). He was a French 
Jesuit priest, who became a missionary among the wild tribes 
of Indians in the northern country, and he became a discov- 
erer and explorer therein, extending his travels to and up and 
down the Mississippi River. 

West Virginia, John R. Kenna (i 848-1 893) and Francis H. 
PiERPONT (18 1 4-1 899). Kenna while quite young saw service 
in the confederate army and became a Member of this House 
and of the Senate of the United States. 

PiERPONT, a resident of what is now West Virginia, very 
early espoused the cause of the Union, and June 21, 1861, 
at Wheeling, Virginia, was chosen by a convention provisional 
governor of Virginia, its governor and lieutenant-governor hav- 
ing declared for the confederacy and dissolved their allegiance 
to the United States. He personally arranged to pay the 
mileage and per diem of the members of the convention. He 
called the legislature of the reorganized government of Vir- 
ginia together July i, 1861, which elected two Senators, and 
he issued commissions to them and to Representatives in 
this House, who were seated at the July (1861) extra session 
of Congress, and as governor of Virginia he generally did many 
other things essential to preserving the rights of the loyal 
people and to maintain their proper relations with the Gov- 
ernment of the United States. He promptly organized and 



134 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

commissioned the field and company officers of regiments and 
companies for service in the Union Army. He was chosen 
governor in 1863 and continued to hold the office of governor 
of Virginia until 1868. Kor a time the seat of government was 
at Wheeling, later (June, 1863) at Alexandria, but on Rich- 
mond being taken (April, 1865) he removed it to Richmond, 
where he administered the office of governor through the 
early period of the reconstruction. 

Through all the trying ordeals no scandal was alleged against 
him. Loyalty to the Union was his guiding star. The needle 
of his chart pointed only to a restored Union. While perform- 
ing the duties of governor of Virginia he bent his energies to 
the creation of the new State of West Virginia. The recital 
of the details of what he then said and did in the formation 
of that State are fully and ably given here by distinguished 
Representatives of the State of West Virginia. Pierpont was 
never governor of West Virginia, as is popularly supposed. 

To deter loyal citizens, the disloyal convention of Virginia, 
besides, against the vote of the people, passing April 17, 1861, 
an ordinance of secession, as early as July, 1861, passed an 
ordinance declaring that any citizen holding any office under 
the old government should be forever banished from the State, 
and if he undertook to represent the State in the Congress 
of the United States, he should, in addition, be guilty of trea- 
son. About the same time the confederate congress passed 
sequestration acts and laws to make United States citizens 
aliens in the confederacy and to confiscate their property, 
and it passed other laws of like character. It was under such 
and other indescribable conditions that Francis H. Pierpont 
took his stand and heroically and loyally maintained the Union. 
[Applause.] 

Virginia from an early time had an irrepressible conflict 
between its eastern and western parts, and there were from 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 135 

time to time some efforts made pointing to a division. In 
1790 — First Census — the white population east of the Blue 
Ridge was 314,523 and west of it 127,594. Forty years later 
(1830) it had increased east of the Blue Ridge to only 362,745 
and west of it to 319,516. But few slaves were held west of 
the Blue Ridge. The invention- of the cotton gin (Whitney, 
1793) multiplied the demand for slave labor, and the sugar 
industry also increased this demand, but Virginia's tobacco 
and other once-important industries had broken down by 
reason of the exhausted fertility of the soil and for other causes, 
mainly attributable to slavery. Slave breeding for market 
then became her chief source of income, and to it the slave- 
holders turned their attention. Western Virginia proper had 
few slaves, and slave breeding there was not profitable. In 
1830 the value of Virginia's slave exports reached $1,500,000 
per annum, and four years later it had risen to $10,000,000 
per annum. All other of her industries had then languished 
or disappeared entirely. 

West of the Blue Ridge the white population greatly in- 
creased, notwithstanding the broken and mountainous country 
was not well situated for general cultivation; but the people 
there toiled with their own hands and earned their bread by 
the sweat of their own faces. No wonder under such widely 
different conditions a widely different civilization existed — one 
built on human slavery and the other on individual free labor. 

But Virginia, in her history, has always been unique. 

The story of its rending is too long for recital here, for if 
given even in a summary way much of importance would have 
to be left out. Her division was along the Appalachian back- 
bone, and this because there was formed the natural line of 
division of sentiment and interest in the institution of slavery. 
The West Virginia mountain region was the hpme of liberty, 



136 Governor Francis Harrison Pier pout 

though from it in earHer times many citizens emigrated to the 
Northwestern Territory, made free by the ordinance of 1787. 

Though Virginia was the earUest home of African slavery, it 
was not, in the period of the Revolution, supposed that it 
would continue to long exist therein. At the First Census (1790) 
Virginia was the most populous of the original States, and she 
had then 293,427 slaves; no other State then had one-half as 
many. In i860 she was still in the lead, with 490,865 slaves. 

Virginia early excelled in statesmen and in the advocacy of 
political and religious liberty. Her first constitution embodied 
a declaration of such liberty. George Nelson wrote this con- 
stitution and Thomas Jefferson wrote its preamble. It was 
the first written constitution of a free State in the world. The 
first West Virginia constitution embodied, word for word, the 
first Virginia act (1785) of religious freedom, written also by 
Jefferson. Jefferson early described the effect and character 
of slavery upon society, and (1782) expressed his forebodings 
and indulged in prophetic vision thus: 

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these 
people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally 
free, can not live in the same government. I tremble for my country 
when I reflect that God is just, that His justice can not sleep forever. 
The way, I hope, is preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total 
emancipation. 

Jefferson was not then alone in Virginia in his desire for 
and predictions of the freedom of the African slave. Washing- 
ton before the Revolution presided at a "Fairfax County con- 
vention" held to restrict slavery, and he^ with Patrick Henry 
and other Virginia statesmen and slaveholders, predicted at the 
close of the Revolution that the slaves would be emancipated 
or that they would be freed violently. As late as 1821 Jeffer- 
son wrote of slavery, also in a spirit of prophecy. George 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 137 

Mason, of Virginia, speaking of the effect of slaves upon a 

country, also prophesied by saying: 

They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. By an inevitable 
chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national 
calamities. 

The time for fulfilled prophecy came and Francis H. Pier- 
PONT was a ready and willing instrument potential in its ful- 
fillment. God's choice of men as well as his choice of methods 
for the accomplishment of great things and in the doing of His 
divine will are always the right men in the right place. In the 
work of resisting secession and slavery's aggression, and in the 
work of preserving a semblance of Virginia loyalty to the 
Union, and in the creation of the new State of West Virginia, 
PiERPONT was not alone. With patriotic exhortation, heroic 
deeds, and ardent prayers the great Reverend Alexander Camp- 
bell, the founder and propagandist of a new religious faith, a 
profound thinker and logician, was a leader who devoutly put 
his hand, pen, and tongue to the great work. Reverend Gordon 
Battelle, Reverend P. T. Laishley, and Reverend Wesley Smith 
were other divines who stood for the preservation of an undi- 
vided Republic. Chester E. Hubbard, Archibald M. Campbell, 
James C. McGrew, R. L. Berkshire, George R. Latham, Daniel 
Lamb, John L. Wheat, John S. Burdett, John S. Carlile, Wait- 
man T. Willey, and others stood foursquare for the Union. 
Carlile and Willey each were chosen United States Senators 
for Virginia by the reorganized legislature, and Hubbard, 
Latham, and McGrew became Members of this House. McGrew 
still survives at 97 years of age. "Archie" Campbell master- 
fully molded public sentiment as editor of the Wheeling Intel- 
ligencer and otherwise. Berkshire became a member of the 
supreme court of West Virginia. 



138 Governor Francis H arrison Pier pout 

In this connection, Mrs. Arnold (Beverly, Virginia), sister of 
Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, should be mentioned as actively- 
loyal to the Union throughout the civil war. The statues of a 
galaxy of loyal patriots of Virginia deserve to be assembled in 
a separately dedicated Hall of Fame as colossal figures in a 
holy cause. 

The State of West Virginia, born amid turmoil, tragedy, and 
war, must ever stand peculiarly alone in its formation. Origi- 
nally it was composed of forty-eight counties — Ohio River and 
mountain counties. The June, 1861, Wheeling convention 
declared the Virginia state offices vacant by reason of their 
treason; then undertook to organize a loyal state government 
with, as already stated, Pierpont as governor, which govern- 
ment was recognized by Congress. August 20, 1861, the con- 
vention adopted an ordinance favoring the formation of a new 
State out of the western portion of Virginia, which was ap- 
proved by the vote of the people, and, November 26, 1861, a 
convention assembled at Wheeling and framed a constitution 
for it. This was ratified April, 1862, and the recognized legis- 
lature of Virginia gave its consent to the creation of the new 
State. Congress, December 31, 1862, passed an act for the 
admission of West Virginia into the Union, with the annexed 
condition that her people first ratify a substitute for the seventh 
section, article 11 of her constitution, providing that children 
of slaves born in her limits after July 4, 1863, should be free; 
that slaves under 10 years of age should be free at the age of 21 
years; that all slaves over 10 and under 21 years of age should be 
free at the age of 25; and that no slave should be brought into 
the State for residence. This section was almost unanimously 
ratified by a vote of the people March 26, 1863, and April 20, 
1863, Lincoln proclaimed West Virginia a State in the Union. 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 139 



This creation of a new State was justified by the rebelUous 
times and in aid of the loyal cause. 

It is a singular historic fact tliat on December 31, 1862, Presi- 
dent Lincoln approved a law of Congress providing for the 
admission of West Virginia as a slave State, with only gradual 
emancipation, and the following day he issued his final eman- 
cipation proclamation, declaring all slaves free as a war meas- 
ure in States and parts of States thefi in rebellion, but exempt- 
ing from its application the forty-eight counties which were to 
comprise West Virginia. There were but forty-eight of the 
counties of Virginia included originally in West Virginia, but 
Congress, by an act approved March 10, 1866, consented to add 
Berkeley and Jefferson counties to the new State. The slaves 
of these two counties had been emancipated by President 
Lincoln's proclamation of January i, 1863, and the mighty and 
ever to be memorable decree of war had then been written in 
the Constitution of the United States — thirteenth amendment, 
ratified December 18, 1865— whereby human slavery became 
forever impossible in our Republic, and our flag was never again 
destined to be unfurled save as an emblem of human freedom. 
The resultant effect of this blood-consecrated decree has pro- 
moted liberty throughout the world. 

It was urged by some loyal statesmen and by the disloyal 
that the creation of West Virginia was itself secession; that 
Virginia's consent was not given by Virginia because her whole 
population did not participate in doing so; that the disloyal 
nonvoters of the whole State outnumbered those who voted on 
the question and in the choice of her loyal legislators. Presi- 
dent Lincoln, among other things, in answer to these objections, 
said : 

Can this Government stand if it indulges constitutional constructions 
by which men in open rebellion against it are to be counted, man for man, 
the equals of those who maintain their loyalty to it? Are they to be 
counted better citizens and more worthy of consideration than those who 



140 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

simply neglect to vote? If so, their treason against the Constitution 
enhances their constitutional value. 

***** 
It is said the devil takes care of his own. Much more should a good 
spirit — the spirit of the Constitution and the Union — take care of its own. 
I think it can not do less and live. 

***** 
The division of the State is dreaded as a precedent. But a measure 
made expedient by war is no precedent for times of peace. It is said that 
the admission of West Virginia is secession, and tolerated only because it 
is our secession. Well, if we call it by that name there is still difference 
enough between secession against the Constitution and secession in favor 
of the Constitution. I believe the admission of West Virginia into the 
Union is expedient. 

This is not the time or occasion for pointing out contrasts 
between those vv^ho were loyal and those who were not, nor to 
raise questions of the propriety of placing the statues of those 
who sought or fought to overthrow the Union our forefathers 
founded by sacrifices made in years of struggle and at the ex- 
pense of blood and treasure, and which they bequeathed to 
their posterity for keeping as a perpetual inheritance. 

Of the illustrious persons who are represented by statues in 
Statuary Hall, three were wholly of Colonial times; eleven were 
of the Colonial and Revolutionary period; ten were statesmen 
subsequent to the formation (1789) of our Constitutional Gov- 
ernment and prior to the civil war, but not participants therein; 
four were Union statesmen, who participated in public affairs 
during and since the civil war; five were Union Army officers 
and statesmen in and since that war; two (Curry and Kenna) 
were confederate soldiers and statesmen in or since that war; 
one (Marquette, Wisconsin) was a Jesuit missionary and an 
early discoverer; one (Frances E. Williard, Illinois) was a 
philanthropist interested in her sex; one (Kearney, New Jersey) 
was a Union officer in the civil war and in earlies wars; one 
(Fulton, Pennsylvania) was a noted inventor; and one (Lee, 
Virginia) was a former officer in the United States Army aiid a 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio 141 



confederate officer during the civil war, and when it was over 
he took no interest in pubhc affairs. 

Governor Pierpont belonged to the fourth of this classifica- 
tion, and his efforts accomplished potential and essential re- 
sults, taken in connection with the achievements of the battle- 
field. He and his loyal Virginia compeers will ever be honored 
by those who admire patriotism and loyalty. They heard their 
country's cry of danger and rushed to the rescue. He will be 
known as the last loyal governor of the State of Virginia before 
its division and as its governor during its return to allegiance 
to the Union. When his public mission was ended he returned 
to his old home (Fairmont) in West Virginia, and there he is 
buried. His statue worthily now stands among the statues of 
illustrious patriots, statesmen, and distinguished officers who 
fought for a government wherein all citizens are guaranteed 
personal and political freedom. His work secured the safety, 
felicity, the happiness, and the liberty of his own generation 
and of posterity. It is fitting that his remains shall sleep in a 
cemetery near his mountain home, where he imbibed the spirit 
that prompted him to achieve so much for the people of his 
State and of his now disenthralled country. 

Let the sound of those he wrought for 
And the feet of those he fought for 
Echo 'round his bones forever more. 

And let his statue stand in this Capitol — Statuary Hall — 
there to be selected out, pointed at, and gazed upon with that 
admiration due one who, in a supreme crisis, stood for the re- 
habilitation, rebaptism, and eternal preservation and perpetua- 
tion of- constitutional liberty and for the Union of the States of 
our Republic, under one flag, and God. 

'Till in all lands and thro' all human story 
The path of duty be the way to glory. 



[Applause.] 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 

Mr. Speaker : The separation of old Virginia into two States 
was foreordained from the very beginning. It was a natural 
evolution, growing out of an unnatural union. Virginia and 
West Virginia were divided by a natural barrier — the Allegheny 
Mountains. A century ago this made commerce between the 
two sections extremely difficult. Without roads or other means 
of communication, the two sections were isolated. The people 
of the different sections were represented by two distinct classes : 
To the east of the Alleghenies by the old "first famihes of Vir- 
ginia;" they could trace their lineage back and were proud of 
their descent. They were naturally politicians and natural ora- 
tors. These characteristics they still maintain. Slavery here 
found congenial surroundings and grew with a rapid growth. 
The soil was fertile, and large crops of corn and of cotton were 
easily produced. Slave labor was well adapted to agriculture, 
and they readily convinced themselves that slavery was moral 
and proper. The economic argument to them seemed unan- 
swerable. It' saved to the white gentlemen, who were in the 
great majority, a means of living without soiling their aristo- 
cratic hands with daily toil. This was reserved for the black 
slave and the unfortunate white man. Virginia west of the 
Alleghenies was settled largely from Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
and New Jersey. These sturdy men, with the belief that they 
were divinely commissioned to earn their bread by the sweat of 
the face, were proud of their horny hands, showing the effect of 

143 



144 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

their daily toil. They conquered the forests, opened up the 
rich valleys to agriculture, and blazed the way for the develop- 
ment of the wonderful natural resources of the region. Coal, 
oil, gas, and lumber have brought unbounded wealth to the 
present State of West Virginia. Here slavery did not flourish. 
Its labor could not be utilized, nor could it in any manner com- 
pete with the free labor of these sturdy white men. It is doubt- 
ful if there were more than 12,000 slaves in i860 west of the 
Alleghenies, when the total slave population of Virginia was 
over 490,000. From the beginning the people, their manners 
and customs, in these two divisions of the State grew apart. 
West of the Alleghenies the feeling grew that the question was a 
moral one; that slavery in itself was essentially wrong — unjust 
to the slave and pernicious to the slave-holding class— while east 
of the Alleghenies the feeling that it was moral and right grew 
apace. Early in the nineteenth century thoughtful men looked 
forward to a separation and the erection of two States out of old 
Virginia, and this feeling grew for more than half a century down 
to its final accomplishment in 1863. Of course eastern Virginia, 
oldest in development, largest in population and power, with 
her trained politicians, controlled in government and in legisla- 
tion. Nor did she always use her power justly toward the 
weaker division. 

The constitutional convention of 1850 and 1851 wrote into 
the constitution of the State a provision which enabled the 
slaveholders to make their slaves count largely as a basis for 
representation while they counted as a minimum for the pur- 
pose of taxation. This provision prohibited the tax on any 
slave under 1 2 years of age, and provided a uniform assessment 
of $300 per slave over 12 years of age. The average value of 
each slave was much over this sum in the slave market, often 
reaching the figure of $3,000. The inequality of this provision 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 145 

is most apparent. The nearly half a million of slaves east of 
the Alleghenies counted largely for representation against the 
12,000 slaves west of the Alleghenies. The farm cattle were 
taxed at their full average market value, while the constitution 
itself protected the eastern slave owner from everything but a 
nominal taxation on the value of his slaves. This proposition 
had been a bone of contention for twenty years prior to the 
convention of 1850. It did more to awaken sectional animosity 
than any other piece of legislation or any other cause of dispute 
between the two sections. It occasioned much bitterness in the 
convention of 1850 and in the years that followed. The senti- 
ment of West Virginia was well voiced in a speech made in the 
convention of 1850 by W. T. Willey, afterwards Senator, as the 
following extract from his speech illustrates: 

We are engaged in no new controversy. This controversy commenced 
long prior to the agitation of pubhc sentiment which convened this body. 
This controversy commenced long prior to the convention of 1829-30. 
It is as old as the lust of power. It is the old contest between the few 
and the many. It is the same struggling effort continued through centu- 
ries past to centralize power in the hands of the few against the antago- 
nistic struggle of the many to have it diffused abroad in the community. 
* * * It seems that even here in the good old Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia the same battle is to be fought again. * * * j ^fHi hq^ say that 
anything can destroy western fealty and allegiance. But referring to those 
principles of selfishness on which gentlemen base their resistance to our 
claim for popular power, how can it be reasonably expected that western 
fealty should not be diminished while that very slave property which we 
have heretofore done all that was ever required at our hands to protect is 
made, in the shape of taxation, the instrumentality of our political degra- 
dation, virtually giving goods and chattels power in the government whence 
we are excluded. 

The effect of this constitutional provision was to throw the 
whole power of the government, in both administration and 
legislation, into the hands of the domineering class of Virginia 
east of the mountains. History records that they used that 
power with a strong hand. While the section west were paying 
49963° — 10 10 



146 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

more than their share of the big taxation through this pro- 
vision, a system was inaugurated that called for large expendi- 
tures for public improvements on a mammoth scale. Railroads, 
canals, and highways were aided and built from the state treas- 
ury on an enormous scale. But substantially none of these 
improvements were projected west of the Allegheny Mountains. 
Railroad and navigation companies were aided east of the 
mountains. It was traversed by roads built by state aid, but 
not even one broad highway was added west of the Alleghenies. 
This policy continued until a debt of more than $40,000,000 was 
piled up against the State, expended in excess of the current 
taxation. All this rankled in the breast of the West Virginian, 
who was anxious to be loyal to his State. While he was proud 
of his State and gloried in the great names of her sons who 
had found a prominent place in history, he, too, was a free- 
born American citizen, felt himself an American sovereign, and 
entitled to equal rights and privileges with the other citizens of 
Virginia. These things did not crush his spirit, but only en- 
couraged him in his growing revolt and made him keen for a 
way to escape from this injustice. West Virginia was ripe for 
revolt before an opportunity was given her in the secession of 
the State. 

The constitutional convention which met and finally decreed 
the secession of the State of Virginia from the Union was a 
stormy one from the date of its convening until the final with- 
drawal of many members from West Virginia. Of the proceed- 
ings of this convention it is not my purpose to speak at length. 
They have passed into history, and I leave them without com- 
ment, except as they bear directly upon the affairs of West 
Virginia in the formation of a new State. When the ordinance 
of secession was finally adopted by this convention, a provision 
was made for the affixing of the signature of each delegate to the 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 147 

instrument. The delegates from the west of the Alleghenies had 
fought the proceedings in the convention almost to a man, and 
only two or three of them finally affixed their signatures to this 
document. The rest immediately withdrew from the conven- 
tion and speedily repaired to their homes, some of them fleeing 
like "Union refugees" secretly for fear of violence, so great was 
the excitement at the time. Immediately the convention 
proceeded! to pass a resolution as follows: 

Resolved, That William G. Brown, James Burley, John S. Burdett, 
John S. Carlile, Marshall M. Dent, Ephraim B. Hall, Chester D. Hub- 
bard, John J. Jackson, James C. McGrew, George McC. Porter, Chapman J. 
Stuart, Campbell Tarr, and Waitman T. Willey be, and are hereby, ex- 
pelled from this convention, and that their seats as members of the con- 
vention be, and are hereby, declared vacant. 

These men, representing West Virginia, had voted against the 
adoption of the ordinance of secession. The expulsion was a 
summary one, and it is difficult to find anything other than the 
deep bitterness against the men who had dared to oppose the 
will of the majority in the convention. If this was not of itself 
a severance of the link which bound the two divisions of the 
State, it at least had a most potent influence in hastening the 
event. 

The return of the delegates to West Virginia aroused the 
dormant public sentiment everywhere. Meetings were held 
in many of the cities, organized by the returning delegates. The 
first was held at Morgantown while the ban of secrecy imposed 
by the convention on the fact that an ordinance of secession 
had been adopted was in force. But it had been currently 
reported that such was the fact. The temper of the people was 
against this action of the convention. They entered their pro- 
tests against it; they denounced it as treason against the United 
States, declared their unalterable opposition to such action, and 
resolved that they would not follow Virginia, but would dis- 
solve their civil and political relations with the east. At the 



148 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

same time they commended the firmness of the delegates in 
resisting the ordinance of secession from the Union. The resolu- 
tions were adopted with enthusiasm and seemed to express the 
universal sentiment of the people, not only in Clarksburg but 
of all the people west of the Alleghenies. Other meetings fol- 
lowed in other cities. West Virginia was loyal to the Govern- 
ment of the United States. On the 22d of April a convention 
assembled at Clarksburg, at which some twelve hundred citizens 
were present, representing all the counties west of the Alle- 
ghenies. Definite action was there taken toward the initiation 
of a movement to separate West Virginia and for the formation 
of a new State. At the same time the civil government at 
Richmond and throughout the State was rapidly disintegrating. 
Officers resigned; bands of armed men were traveling the high- 
ways, driving out the people who were opposed to the ordinance 
of secession. The organized government throughout the State 
seemed to be at an end. While not all the people west of the 
Alleghenies were opposed to secession, not more than 10 per 
cent were in its favor, ■ as disclosed afterwards by the vote 
which was taken to ratify the ordinance of secession. Civil 
government of the State seemed to have become a thing of the 
past and confusion reigned supreme. 

The meeting at Clarksburg recommended a convention con- 
sisting of five delegates from the territory west of the Alleghe- 
nies, to meet at Wheeling on the 13th of May, "to consult and 
determine upon such action as the people of northwestern Vir- 
ginia should take' in the present fearful emergency." Delegates 
to this convention were appointed in nearly, if not quite all, of the 
counties, and when this convention met it took the initiatory 
step toward the dismemberment of Virginia. In the meantime 
military companies were organized for self-protection, and ulti- 
mately for the purpose of joining the armies of the Federal or 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 149 

Confederate Government. Henry A. Wise was sent with a con- 
federate force to take possession of the Kanawha Valley and to 
hold it for the confederacy. Ultimately these, with other con- 
federate forces, were driven out by the Union troops, and by the 
month of September the final division of confederates, under 
General Robert E. Lee, were beaten in an engagement at Cheat 
Mountain, and the authority of the United States was restored 
to West Virginia. 

The convention at Wheeling assembled on the 13th of May. 
Masses of the citizens accompanied the delegates, and all Wheel- 
ing was intensely interested in the convention. It met without 
legal authority ; it was forced into existence by the exigencies of 
the case. If it had any authority, it was that which emanated 
directly from the people. It was claimed to be justified by that 
provision in the bill of rights which declares that — 

Government is instituted for the common benefit, protection, and secur- 
ity of the people, Nation, or community; * * * and when any govern- 
ment shall be found to be inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a 
majority of the community has an indisputable, inalienable, and inde- 
feasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it in such manner as shall be 
judged most conducive to the public weal. 

Upon the organization of the convention a committee, consist- 
ing of one delegate from each county, was appointed upon state 
and federal relations. Upon this committee appears the name 
of Francis H. Pierpont, whose statue in the Rotunda of the 
Capitol is recognized and honored to-day. 

Up to this time the ideas of the delegates had been conflicting 
or had taken an indefinite form. But they soon centralized, and 
it was evidently the firm purpose and conviction of the assem- 
bled people that West Virginia must be separated from the old 
State and that she must still maintain her 103'alty and allegiance 
to the Union. On the second day of the convention Mr. John S. 
Carlile offered a resolution, entirely revolutionary in its char- 



150 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

acter and plainly in defiance of section 3, Article IV, of the 

Constitution, which declares: 

New States may be admitted by the Congress into the Union; but no 
new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other 
State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States or 
parts of States without the consent of the legislatures of the States con- 
cerned, as well as 6f the Congress. 

The members of the convention were plainly intent on their 
purpose to sever West Virginia from the old State and were 
in no mood to listen to constitutional arguments, but ready to 
grasp at the only definite proposition that was offered. The 
resolution provided that the committee on state and federal 
relations should draft a constitution for the new State, to be 
called the State of New Virginia, and provided also for the sanc- 
tion of Congress. Mr. Waitman T. Willey, who, like Carlile, 
had been a delegate to the convention which adopted the ordi- 
nance of secession and had withdrawn from it, had the temerity 
to oppose this resolution, pointing out the provision of the con- 
stitution. He was followed by Honorable Francis H. PiKR- 
PONT in a speech strongly supporting Mr. Willey in his conten- 
tion with all the force and vigor of his native eloquence. Pre- 
cisely what happened at this stage of the convention's proceed- 
ings has never been better described than in a letter from Gov- 
ernor PiKRPONT to Mr. Willey, from which the following extract 

is taken : 

When he (Mr. Carlile) concluded, I, with others, I think, asked you (Mr. 
Willey) to go on the platform, which you did, and commenced your speech 
in opposition to Mr. Carlile's proposition and spoke, I should think, some 
three-quarters of an hour. My recollection is that by this time it was dark. 
I saw your weakness and exhaustion, and I think I moved that the conven- 
tion adjourn until 9 or 10 o'clock the next day to enable you to finish your 
speech. On the next day the convention assembled, and you concluded 
your remarks. I think you spoke an hour and a half that morning with 
great earnestness. Before the convention assembled on Wednesday I 
learned that placards had been put up at the market houses and other 
places, calling a public meeting of the citizens that day at the court-house 
for the purpose of condemning your opposition to Mr. Carlile's project. I 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 151 

also learned that some parties had visited the various delegations the night 
before and that morning to ascertain how they stood affected in regard to 
that project, and that three-fourths of the delegations were in favor of 
Carlile's project. When you concluded your speech on the morning of the 
third day, Campbell Tarr followed in a short speech. * * * i then ob- 
tained the floor and went on the platform and spoke for about an hour and 
a quarter, when some movement was observed in the lobby, which was 
crowded, induced by some questions propounded to me by Mr. Carlile, 
which movement I thought indicated a disposition to overawe the conven- 
tion, and supposed to be a manifestation of the spirit which had caused the 
call of the court-house meeting. I then referred to the court-house meet- 
ing to condemn you and denounced the movement and appealed to the 
men of the mountain and river counties not to allow themselves to be over- 
awed by this outside pressure. At this point the dinner hour arrived; a 
motion was made for a recess, and that I should conclude my remarks after 
dinner. During the recess the same parties who had taken the sense of the 
delegations in the morning again canvassed the delegations to ascertain 
how they stood, and they found that they were as strongly opposed to Mr. 
Carlile's proposition as they were in favor of it in the morning. After din- 
ner I proceeded with my remarks, but had not spoken more than ten min- 
utes when Mr. Carlile came in and proposed to withdraw his resolution and 
recommit the whole subject to the committee on resolutions. 

At the meeting of the committee on state and federal rela- 
tions, Governor Pierpont offered a resolution for a general con- 
vention, to be held on the nth of June, to devise such measures 
as the welfare of the people of the northwestern counties should 
demand. His plan was to provide a provisional government for 
the State of Virginia. This resolution was reported by the com- 
mittee and adopted by a practically unanimous vote of the con- • 
vention without further debate. 

The convention met on the nth day of June, and promptly 
adopted the following declaration: 

A declaration of the people of Virginia, represented in convention, at 
the city of Wheeling, Thursday, June 13, 1861. 

The true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and 
provide for the protection and security of the governed; and when any 
form of organization of government proves inadequate for or subversive 
of this purpose it is the right, it is the duty, of the latter to alter or abolish 
it. The bill of rights of Virginia, framed in 1776, reaffirmed in 1830, 
and again in 1851, expressly reserves this right to a majority of her people 



152 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

The act of the general assembly calling the convention which assembled at 
Richmond in February last, without the previously ex.pressed consent of 
such majority, was therefore a usurpation, and the convention thus called 
has not only abused the powers nominally intrusted to it, but with the 
connivance and active aid of the executive, has usurped and exercised 
other powers, to the manifest injury of the people, which, if permitted, 
will inevitably subject them to military despotism. 

The convention by its pretended ordinances has required the people of 
Virginia to separate from and wage war against the Government* of the 
United States and against the citizens of neighboring States, with whom 
they have heretofore maintained friendly, social, and business relations. 

It has attempted to subvert the Union founded by Washington and 
his copatriots in the former days of the Republic, which has conferred 
unexampled prosperity upon every class of citizens and upon every sec- 
tion of the country. 

It has attempted to transfer the allegiance of the people to an illegal 
confederacy of rebellious States and required their submission to its 
pretended edicts and decrees. 

It has attempted to place the whole militarj^ force and military op- 
erations of the Commonwealth under the control and direction of such 
confederacy for offensive as well as defensive purposes. 

It has, in conjunction with the state executive, instituted, wherever 
their usurped power extends, a reign of terror intended to suppress the 
free expression of the will of the people, making elections a mockery 
and a fraud. 

The same combination, even before the passage of the pretended ordi- 
nance of secession, instituted war by the seizure and appropriation of 
the property of the Federal Government, and by organizing and mobi- 
lizing armies, with the avowed purpose of capturing or destroying the 
capital of the Union. 

They have attempted to bring the allegiance of the people of the United 
States in direct conflict with their subordinate allegiance to the State, 
thereby making obedience to their pretended ordinances treason against 
the former. 

We, therefore", the delegates here assembled in convention to devise 
such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the loyal 
citizens of Virginia may demand, having maturely considered the premises, 
and viewing with great concern the deplorable conditions to which this 
once happy Commonwealth must be reduced, unless some regular, adequate^ 
remedy is speedily adopted, and appeahng to the Supreme Ruler of the 
universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and 
on behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare that the preser- 
vation of their dearest rights and liberties and their security in person 
and property imperatively demand the reorganization of the government 
of the Commonwealth, and that all acts of said convention and executive 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 153 

tending to separate this Commonwealth from the United States, or to levy 
and carry on war against them, are without authority and void, and that 
the offices of all who adhere to the said convention and executive, whether 
legislative, executive, or judicial, are vacated. 

They also adopted an ordinance for the reorganization of the 

state government, including a provision for the election of the 

state legislature. It provided for the following oath to be taken 

by each of the officials elected: 

I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of 
the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme 
law of the land, anything in the constitution and laws of the State of 
Virginia or in the ordinances of the convention which assembled at Rich- 
mond on the 13th day of February, 1861, to the contrary notwithstanding; 
and that I will uphold and defend the government of Virginia as vindicated 
and restored by the convention which assembled at Wheeling on the nth 
day of June, 1861. 

The -legislature was elected and met at Wheeling on the ist 
day of July, 1861 . The convention then proceeded to elect state 
officers, and Francis H. Pierpont was elected governor. 

This was a bold move on the part of these West Virginians. 
They assumed the duties of the government of a State, the bulk 
of whose population was just across the mountains engaged in 
a civil war; people who hated them for their loyalty to the 
Union, and who had the power, if they were captured, to try 
them in an unfriendly court and before an unfriendly jury for 
the usurpation of the offices of the State. But with the courage 
of their convictions, under the intrepid leadership of Francis 
H. PiERPONT, they proceeded calmly to their work, and law and 
order was restored throughout all West Virginia. 

On the 2oth of August, 1861, the convention which had as- 
sembled passed an ordinance that, substantially, the territory 
west of the Alleghenies should be erected into a separate State, 
which was to be submitted to the legislature. 

The most perplexing question that arose was with reference 
to slavery. Though the slaves were at all times few in number 



154 Governor Francis H arrison Pier pout 

and at this time included not more than 8,000, they were lawful 
property under the laws of Virginia, in the opinion of the 
people who were forming the new State. Various suggestions 
and compromises were debated, but finally the gradual abolition 
of slavery was placed in the act of Congress as a condition by 
which the State' was admitted into the Union, which condition 
was subsequently ratified by the people. Later the emanci- 
pation by constitutional amendment settled this question for all 
time. 

Mr. John S. Carlile and Mr. Waitman T. Willey were elected 
Senators of the restored State of Virginia, and were duly re- 
ceived, as were also the Representatives in the Congress. For 
some reason not yet accounted for Senator Carlile changed 
his position as an advocate for separate statehood for West 
Virginia while the bill was pending before the Senate and was 
denounced by Senator Pomeroy and by Senator Wade for de- 
sertion and "treason" toward his people. But Senator Willey 
labored long and patiently, and with great ability, for the ad- 
mission of the State. His speeches were notable contributions 
to the high order of debate in the Senate on this subject. 
When the bill came before the President, Mr. Lincoln referred 
it to his Cabinet, and was met with conflicting views. He gave 
the question great thought and consideration, and at length, 
with a most clear and convincing opinion, which seems to have 
settled all doubts as to the legality of the steps taken, he signed 
the act which created the State of West Virginia. 

Although at all times active, as in opposing secession in the 
Virginia convention, afterwards in turning the tide which 
seemed to be turning the delegates toward the original imprac- 
ticable resolution of Mr. Carlile, where by his matchless elo- 
quence he turned an overwhelming majority for into a unani- 
mous vote against the proposition of Carlile, by his participa- 
tion in the debate of the Wheeling convention of June 1 1 , and 



Address of Mr. Payne, of New York 155 

by his wise action while performing the delicate task of pro- 
visional governor, Francis H. Pierpont placed himself in the 
forefront and earned the broad distinction which is paid to his 
memory to-day in the erection of this beautiful statue to his 
honor as a representative of the sons of West Virginia in the 
Capitol of the United States. 

Francis Harrison Pierpont was born January 25, 1814, in 
Monongalia County, Virginia, now Marion County, West Vir- 
ginia. He graduated from Allegheny College at Meadville, 
Pennsylvania, in 1839. He took up the vocation of teacher, 
which he followed for several years, afterwards becoming a very 
successful lawyer and business man. He was engaged in coal 
mining and manufacturing fire brick. He was an antislavery 
Whig and was a presidential elector in 1848. He was a leading 
member of the Methodist Protestant Church. He was first 
elected provisional governor of Virginia on the 21st day of 
June, 1 86 1, by the Wheeling convention. At a general election 
on the fourth Thursday of May, 1862, he was elected by popular 
vote to fill out the unexpired term of John Letcher, who was 
declared to have vacated his office by reason of his having 
joined the confederacy. On the fourth Thursday of May, 1863, 
he was elected governor of the old State of Virginia for the full 
term of four years, beginning January i, 1864. He removed 
the seat of government from WheeHng to Alexandria before the 
State of West Virginia began its legal existence on June 30. 
1863. On the 25th day of May, 1865, he removed the seat of 
government to Richmond and served the remainder of his term, 
and after January i, 1868, held over until the i6th day of 
April in the same year, when General Schofield, in command of 
the first military district, appointed Henry H. Wells as pro- 
visional governor. Thereupon, in 1868 Governor Pierpont 
returned to his home at Fairmont, in West Virginia. He was 



156 Governor Francis Harrison Pier pant 

elected to the house of delegates in West Virginia- in 1869, and 
was afterwards appointed collector of internal revenue for West 
Virginia by President Garfield. He died at Pittsburg, at the 
home of his daughter, March 24, 1899, and was buried at Fair- 
mont, West Virginia. 

Others will speak more at length of the personal character- 
istics of this great man. As another has said of him: 

He was a towering figure even among the giants produced by popular 
government when all its energies were invoked by the terrible crisis in 
the life of the Nation, brought on by the secession movement. * * * 
Governor Pierpont ranks among the truly great men whose greatness 
is the product of their own character and is in no sense the creation of 
circumstances. At a time of doubt, dismay, and uncertainty his patriot- 
ism was unfaltering, active, and courageous, his action prompt, decisive, 
and efficient, and he won for himself a distinguished place in the history 
of his countr)\ 

Let me close this with the words of Alston G. Dayton, for- 
merly a Member of this House, who speaks from personal 
acquaintance and knowledge, and describes his masterly elo- 
quence in a speech delivered after he was 80 years of age : 

As I looked at his venerable form, placid and kindly face, heard the old, 
burning thoughts, clothed in his wonted eloquent language, spring to his 
lips, listened to his joyous, prophetic words outlining the future of our 
Nation and State, his very presence was a tower of strength. His hand 
resting on my shoulder at the time, thrilled me, and every word seemed 
a benediction of faith and hope. We were all deeply impressed. He was 
peculiarly bright and happy — no doubt, no wavering, no fear. He seemed 
to look beyond us and to pierce the veil between the present and the 
future, and, as we hung on his words, telling us of the future of the State 
for which he had done so much, which he had loved so well — 
"His voice sounded like a prophet's word, 

And in its sacred tones were heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be." 

[Applause.] 



Address of Mr. Gaines, of West Virginia 

J- 

Mr. Speaker: Fifty years ago events profoundly affecting 
the destiny of West Virginia were moving from the hand of 
God with bewildering haste and compelling power. In Decem- 
ber, i860, South Carolina adopted the ordinance of secession. 
All over Virginia, in the east and in the west, the people were 
tremendously moved. But those of the east and those of the 
west, while equally excited, were quite differently affected by 
South Carolina's attempt to break up the Union. Already the 
people of Virginia were at heart two communities, not one. 
Before railroads were general people faced toward the mouth of 
their rivers. Eastern Virginia looked toward the Atlantic, and 
western Virginia toward the Ohio and the great free Northwest. 
Eastern Virginia, adapted to slavery, was interested in main- 
taining that institution; while western Virginia, mountainous 
and therefore free, had long been irritated by laws which were 
thought unjustly to discriminate in favor of the slave-holding 
interests. When therefore the Virginians all over the State 
rushed together in meetings to give expression to the public 
sentiment in relation to South Carolina's fateful declaration, 
the resolutions of the eastern meetings were quite different from 
those of the western meetings. While in the east they were 
resolving that secession was a constitutional right, in the west 
they were declaring it to be revolution, and that no just cause 
for revolution existed. The general assembly at Richmond 
expressed itself as opposed to any attempt on the part of the 

157 



158 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Federal Government to "coerce a sovereign State," and called 
a state convention. The people of Harrison County resolved 
that they would support no man for a seat in that convention 
"who believes that the Federal Government has not the right 
of self-preservation." 

In all this public excitement the old feeling of the people of 
the western part of the State that their geography, their opin- 
ions, and their interests called for a separate State was not 
dormant. The people of Tyler County, on January 24, 1861, 
followed up their declaration of adherence to the Union by 
saying "that if eastern Virginia secedes, we are in favor of 
striking West Virginia from eastern Virginia and forming a 
State independent of the South and firm to the Union." In the 
Virginia convention, Mr. Burley, a delegate from Marshall 
County, offered a resolution to the effect that the right of revo- 
lution can be exercised as well by a portion of the citizens of a 
State against their state government as it can be exercised by 
the whole people of a State against their* Federal Government. 

I leave to others better qualified to perform it the task of 
tracing the various steps in the formation of the State of West 
Virginia and Governor Pierpont's leadership in the movement. 
He seems to have possessed in higher degree than any of those 
with whom he acted that threefold equipment of a statesman — 
brains, information, and courage. He had that freedom from 
hesitation and that confidence in the success of his cause which 
are at the bottom of all really great achievement. "There can 
be," said he, "no neutrality in this contest; and there need be 
no doubt on the subject as to which party will triumph." 

West Virginians, Mr. Speaker, are the only successful seces- 
sionists — we seceded from secession. I trust I may be pardoned 
at this late day for expressing the belief and the hope that the 
great Republic will never know any other kind of successful 
secession. West Virginians, let it be confessed, have never been 



Address of Mr. Gaines, of West Virginia 159 

very much interested in the constitutional questions involved 
in the formation of our State. We deny that anyone has the 
constitutional right to take us out of the Union if we want to 
stay in; and we have always very much wanted to stay. In 
fact, the question fought out in the civil war was whether a 
"sovereign State could be coerced" in regard to the matters 
then in dispute. And it transpired, as a matter of fact, that 
she could. The formation of the new State was a part of that 
coercion, and was otherwise ardently desired by the people who 
lived there. Even if it should be said by some that our course 
was violent, then we are reconciled even to that, in view of the 
fact that the extent of our violence was the measure of our 
devotion to hiiman liberty and the Union. 

The separation into two States was as inevitable for Virginia 
as the great civil war for the Nation. It is well that both came. 
Just as sectional hatred and distrust had grown until nothing 
but war itself could have effected a cure, so the irritation 
between the slaveholder on tide water and the inhabitants of 
Virginia's western slope, whose streams flowed toward the Great 
Lakes, could have been allayed by separation only. Sometimes 
the members of a family have such incompatible ideas that 
they quarrel if they attempt to remain one family. The people 
of Virginia, east and west of the Alleghenies, had, with their 
conflicting notions and interests, got on each other's nerves. 
Separation was the only remedy. If the remedy was heroic, I 
thank God the cure was complete. The cause of irritation re- 
moved, we feel with pleasure and with pride our kinship with 
the Virginians, our common source of political origin, and our 
common political history. 

West Virginia, Mr. Speaker, war born but devoted to peace, 
happy, hospitable, and prosperous, loves ardently the flag of 
the Union and all its people, with some special fondness for 
our cousins of the Old Dominion. [Applause.] 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 

J- 

Mr. Speaker: The civil war in tfie United States had its 
origin in the purpose of the slaveholding States to protect 
and perpetuate human slavery, and this purpose found expres- 
sion in the attempt of those States to. secede from the Union 
and to create the confederacy. The inevitable result was "hor- 
rid war;" war bad at tJie best, but a thousand fold worse when 
waged between peoples of the same blood, speech, religion, 
and with a common history and traditions in which all gloried. 

Three striking and far-reaching results originated in and at- 
tended the war and remain as perpetual memorials of the folly 
of those who attempted to perpetuate slavery by secession and 
civil war. 

First, the claim of the right of any State to dissolve its re- 
lations and obligations to the Union under the Constitution of 
1787, whether an original party to that compact or coming 
under its sway by its provisions for the admission of new States, 
or by the acquisition of new territory, was settled against that 
pretension; and the doctrine that the Union was indissoluble 
and the States indestructible, and that the attempted dissolu- 
tion of the one or the effort to secede by the other was treason, 
and must be treated as an act of rebellion and war, was forever 
established. Thus was interpreted the meaning of that "more 
perfect Union," that "domestic tranquillity;" and the "bless- 
ings of liberty to ourselves and bur posterity" for which the 
Constitution was "ordained and established" by the people. 
49963° — 10 11 161 



i62 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Secondly, in the conflict of arms the prime motive and cause 
of the war was completely destroyed and no vestige of slavery 
remains to threaten a renewal of the strife. The abolition of 
slavery by the proclamation of the President was dramatic, 
logical, and justifiable upon the highest grounds of expediency, 
pubUc policy, humanity, and justice. It was settled first by 
arms, to which those who sought to protect and perpetuate it 
had appealed, and, secondly, by writing it into the organic law 
by the adoption of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, in 1865, after the close of the war, according to all the 
provisions of that document duly and formally complied with 
by twenty-seven out of thirty-six States then constituting the 
Union. 

These two results of the war were natural, indeed inevitable, 
and had an element of retributive justice as well as of precau- 
tion and prudence in the motives that prompted them. But 
they left no mark, record, or monument on the political or 
physical geography or territorial relations of the States. 

The third result of the' war — no less striking in historical im- 
portance — had nothing to do with the origin of the war. This 
was the creation of a new State — West Virginia — out of the 
territory constituting a part of the State of Virginia. For more 
than a half century the people of western Virginia had dreamed 
of and discussed the possibility of a separate State west of the 
Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains. Blaine, in his Twenty 
Years in Congress, said : 

Between the two sections of the State there had long been serious antago- 
nism. Indeed from the very origin of the settlement of western Virginia, 
which had made but little progress when the Federal Constitution was 
adopted, its citizens were in large degree alienated from the eastern and 
older section of the State. The men of the West were hardy frontiersmen, 
a majority of them soldiers of the Revolution, and their immediate de- 
scendants, without estates, with little but the honorable record of patriotic 
service and their own strong arms for their fortunes. They had few slaves. 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 163 



They had their land patents, which were certificates of patriotic service 
in the Revolutionary War, and they depended upon their own labor for a 
new home in the wilderness. A population thus originating, a community 
thus founded, were naturally uncongenial to the aristocratic element of the 
Old Dominion. They had no trade relations, no social intercourse, with 
the tide-water section of the State. Formidable mountain ranges sepa- 
rated the two sections, and the inhabitants saw little of each other. The 
business interests of the western region led the people to the valley of the 
Ohio and not to the shores of the Chesapeake. The waters of the Monon- 
gahela connected them with Pennsylvania and carried them to Pittsburg. 
All the rivers of the western slope flowed into the Ohio and gave to the 
people the markets of Cincinnati and Louisville. Their commercial inter- 
course depended on the navigation of the western waters, and a far larger 
number had visited St. Louis and New Orleans than had ever seen Rich- 
mond or Norfolk. The West Virginians were aware of the splendid 
resources of their section and were constantly irritated by the neglect 
of the parent State to aid in their development. They enjoyed a climate 
as genial as that of the Italians who dwell on the slopes of the Apennines; 
they had forests more valuable than those that skirt the upper Rhine; 
they had mineral wealth as great as that which has given England her 
precedence in the manufacturing progress of the world. They were anx- 
ious for self-government. 

The President was anxious to preserve and stimulate the 
sentiment of loyalty in the border-slave States. Delaware, 
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were already in 1861 in the 
hands of loyal state administrators. Virginia alone of the slave- 
holding States represented territory adjoining the loyal States 
on the north. Blaine again tersely expresses the exact situation 
and the attitude of the President and the people of western 
Virginia. He says: 

Virginia bordered on the Ohio River for 250 miles; she was adjacent to 
Pennsylvania for a distance of 120 miles, half on the southern, half on the 
western line of that State. Her extreme point stretched to the northward 
of Pittsburg, and was within 25 miles of the parallel of latitude that marks 
the southern boundary of New England. The continued exercise of even 
a nominal jurisdiction so far north by the State which contained the capital 
of the rebel confederacy would be a serious impeachment of the power of 
the National Government, and would detract from its respect at home and 
its prestige abroad. But the National Government was of itself capable 
only of enforcing military occupation and proclaiming the jurisdiction of 
the sword. What the President desired was the establishment of civil 



164 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

government by a loyal people, with the reign of law and order everywhere 
recognized. Happily the disposition of the inhabitants was in harmony 
with the wishes of the administration. 

Many meetings of the people were held during the winter and 
spring of 1861 to discuss the threatened secession of Virginia, 
and among others one in my own county of Monongalia on the 
17th day of April', the day on which the ordinance of secession 
■was passed by the Richmond convention (although on that day 
they had not learned of its passage), at which resolutions were 
adopted declaring that "the time had come when every friend 
of the Union should rally to the support of the flag of his coun- 
try and defend the same; that the people of Monongaha, regard- 
less of past party affiliations, hereby enter their solemn protest 
against the secession of the State; that we owe undying fidelity 
to the Federal Union;" and after reciting the grievances that 
western Virginia had endured and submitted to under the oppres- 
sive policy of eastern Virginia, "that now the measure of oppres- 
sion is full, and if, as she claims, secession is the only remedy 
for all real or supposed wrongs, then the day is near when the 
West will arise in the majesty of its strength and repudiating 
its oppressors will dissolve all civil and political connection with 
the East and remain firmly under the Stars and Stripes." 

A vote of thanks was passed to Waitman T. Willey and Mar- 
shall M. Dent, their representatives in the Richmond conven- 
tion, for their loyal stand and vote against the ordinance, and 
they were instructed, in the event of the passage of the ordinance 
of secession, to propose a division of the State. Thus came from 
the people of Monongalia County one of the first resolutions 
relative to the formation of the new State. Tyler County prob- 
ably had the honor of passing, on January 24, 1861, the first 
resolution of similar import. 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 165 

At one of the largest meetings, numbering more than twelve 

hundred in attendance, held in the city of Clarksburg on the 

2 2d of April, 1 86 1, it was unanimously — 

Resolved and recommended, That the people in each of the counties com- 
posing northwestern Virginia appoint delegates, not less than five in num- 
ber, of their wisest, best, and discreetest men, to meet in convention at 
Wheeling on the 13th day of May next, to consult and determine upon what 
position the people of northwestern Virginia should take in the fearful 
emergency. 

On that day there were assembled in the city of Wheeling 
representatives from twenty-seven counties, and the convention 
was called to order by Chester D. Hubbard, the father of my 
distinguished colleague from the First District, who was later a 
Member of Congress from that district, and George R. Latham, 
who later represented one of the West Virginia districts in Con- 
gress, was made temporary secretary. 

On the same day on which this convention assembled a large 
number of citizens of Berkeley County met in mass meeting at 
Martinsburg, and in a series of resolutions, which were unani- 
mously adopted, warned their brethern of the State that if they 
persisted in the work of secession a division of Virginia would 
be inevitable. 
'The first Wheeling convention passed resolutions declaring — 

That in event of the ratification of the ordinance of secession by the people 
the counties here represented, and all others disposed to do likewise, 
were recommended to elect delegates on the 4th day of June ensuing to a 
general convention to meet on the nth of the same month, the business of 
which should be to devise such measures as the safety and welfare of the 
people should demand. Each county was authorized to appoint a num- 
ber of delegates equal to twice its number of representatives in the next 
general assembly, and the senators and representatives elected on the fourth 
Thursday of May at the general election as members of the general assem- 
bly of Virginia should be entitled to seats in the convention. 

The vote on the ordinance of secession was taken on the 23d 
day of May, 1861, and in the counties now composing West Vir- 
ginia 44,000 votes were cast, of which 40,000 were against the 
ordinance. 



i66 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

On the nth day of June, 1861, the "second Wheeling con- 
vention," as it is commonly called, convened, and the commit- 
tee on credentials reported thirty-five counties represented. 
Arthur I. Boreman, of Wood County, was chosen president of 
the convention. , He was afterwards elected the first governor 
of West Virginia, and later a United States Senator from West 
Virginia. 

The convention unanimously adopted the following declara- 
tion: 

A declaration of the people of Virginia represented in convention at the city 
of Wheeling, Thursday, June 13, 1861. 

The true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and provide 
for the protection and security of the governed, and when any form or 
organization of government proves inadequate for or subversive of this pur- 
pose, it is the right, it is the duty of the latter to abolish it. The bill of 
rights of Virginia, framed in 1776, reafifirmed in 1830, and again in 1851, 
expressly reserves this right to a majority of her people. The act of the 
general assembly calling the cofivention which assembled in Richmond in 
February last, without the previously expressed consent of such majority, 
was therefore a usurpation; and the convention thus called has not only 
abused the powers nominally intrusted to it, but, with the connivance and 
active aid of the executive, has usurped and exercised other powers to the 
manifest injury of the people, which, if permitted, will inevitably subject 
them to a military despotism. 

The convention by its pretended ordinances has required the people of 
Virginia to separate from and wage war against the Government of the 
United States, with whom they have heretofore maintained friendly, social, 
and business relations. 

It has attempted to subvert the Union founded by Washington and 
his copatriots in the purer days of the Republic, which has conferred 
unexampled prosperity upon every class of citizens and upon every sec- 
tion of the country. 

It has attempted to place the whole military force and military op- 
erations of the Commonwealth under the direction and control of such 
confederacy for offensive as well as defensive purposes. 

It has, in conjunction with the state executive, instituted, wherever 
their usurped power extends, a reign of terror, intended to suppress the 
free expression of. the will of the people, making elections a mockery 
and a fraud. 

The same combination, even before the passage of the pretended ordi- 
nance of secession, instituted war by the seizure and appropriation of the 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 167 



property of the Federal Government, and by organizing and mobilizing 
armies, with the avowed purpose of capturing or destroying the capital 
of the Union. 

They have attempted to bring the allegiance of the people of the United 
States into direct conflict with their subordinate allegiance to the State, 
thereby making obedience to their pretended ordinances treason against 
the former. 

We, therefore, the delegates here assembled in convention to devise 
such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the loyal 
citizens of Virginia may demand, have maturely considered the premises, 
and, viewing with great concern the deplorable condition to which this 
once happy Commonwealth must be reduced unless some regular adequate 
measurfe is speedily adopted, and appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and on 
behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare that the preservation 
of their dearest rights and liberties and their security in person and property 
imperatively demand the reorganization of the government of the Common- 
wealth, and that all acts of said convention and executive tending to sepa- 
rate this Commonwealth from the United StateSj or to levy and carry on 
war against them, are without authority and void ; and that the offices of all 
who adhere to the said convention and executive, whether legislative, 
executive, or judicial, are vacated. 

On the 14th the convention began the work of reorganizing 
the government of Virginia, and on the same day the committee 
reported the following ordinance, which was adopted on the 
19th, without a dissenting voice: 

An ordinance for the reorganization of the state government. 

The people of Virginia, by their delegates assembled in convention at 
Wheeling, do ordain as follows: 

I. A governor, Heutenant-governor, and attorney-general for the State 
of Virginia shall be appointed by the powers which pertain to their respec- 
tive offices by the existing laws of the State, and to continue in office for 
six months, or until their successors be elected and qualified, and the 
general assembly is required to provide by law for an election of governor 
and lieutenant-governor by the people as soon as in their judgment such 
election can be properly held. 

2.- A council, to consist of five members, shall be appointed by this 
convention, to consult with and advise the governor respecting such 
matters pertaining to his official duties as he shall submit for their con- 
sideration, and to aid in the execution of his official orders. Their term 
of office shall expire at the same time as that of the governor. 

3. The delegates elected to the general assembly on the 23d day of 
May last and the senators entitled under existing laws to seats in the 



i68- Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 



next general assembly, together with such delegates and senators as 
may be duly elected under the ordinances of this convention, or existing 
laws, to fill vacancies who shall qualify themselves by taking the oath 
or affirmation hereinafter set forth shall constitute the legislature of 
the State, to discharge the duties and exercise the powers pertaining to 
the general assembly. They shall hold their offices from the passage 
of this ordinance until the end of the terms for which they were respectively 
elected. They shall assemble in the city of Wheeling on the ist day of 
July next and proceed to organize themselves as prescribed by existing 
laws in their respective branches. A majority in each branch thus quali- 
fied, voting affirmatively, shall be competent to pass any act specified in 
the twenty-seventh section of the fourth article of the constitution of 
the State. 

4. The governor, lieutenant-governor, attorney-general, members of 
the legislature and all officers now in the service of the State, or of any 
county, city, or town thereof, or hereafter to be elected or appointed for 
such service, including the judges and clerks of the several courts, sheriffs, 
and commissioners of the revenue, justices of the peace, officers of the city 
and municipal corporations, and officers of militia, and officers and privates 
of volunteer companies of the State not mustered into the service of the 
United States, shall each take the following oath or affirmation before 
proceeding in the discharge of their several duties: 

" I do solemnly swear — or affirm — that I will support the Constitution 
of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof as the supreme 
law of the land, anything in the constitution and laws of Virginia or in 
the ordinances of the convention which assembled in Richmond on the 
13th of February, 1861, to the contrary notwithstanding, and that I will 
uphold and defend the government of Virginia as vindicated and restored 
by the convention which assembled at Wheeling on the nth day of June, 
1861." 

5. If any elective officer who is required by the preceding section to 
take such oath or affirmation fail or refuse so to do, it shall be the duty 
of the governor, upon satisfactory evidence of the fact, to issue his writ 
declaring the office to be vacant and providing for a special election to 
fill such vacancy at some convenient and early day- to be designated in 
said writ, of which due publication shall be made for the benefit of the 
persons entitled to vote at such election, and such writ may be directed, 
at the discretion of the governor, to the sheriff or sheriffs of the proper 
county or counties or to a special conimissioner or commissioners to be 
named by the governor for the purpose. If the officer who fails or refuses 
to take such oath or affirmation be appointed by the governor, he shall 
fill the vacancy without writ, but if such officer be appointed otherwise 
than by the governor or by election, the writ shall be issued by the governor 
directed to the appointing power, requiring it to fill the vacancy. 

Arthur I. BorEman, President. 
G. L. CranmER, Secretary. 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 169 

On the 20th day of June Francis H. Pierpont was unani- 
mously elected provisional governor, with other state officers. 
On taking the office Mr. PierponT spoke in part as follows : 

This day and this event mark a period in the history of constitutional 
liberty and in American history. For more than three-quarters of a century 
our Government has proceeded, in all the States and in all the Territories, 
upon the intelligence of the people, and upon the theory that in the people 
resides all power, and that from them all power must emanate. 

******* 

We have been driven into the position we occupy to-day by the usurpers 
at the South, who have inaugurated this war upon the soil of Virginia and 
have made it the great Crimea of this contest. We, representing the loyal 
citizens of Virginia, have been bound to assume the position we have 
assumed to-day for the protection of ourselves, our wives, our children, 
and our property. We, I repeat, have been driven to assume this position; 
and now we are but recurring to the great fundamental principle of our 
fathers, that to the loyal people of a State belongs the lawmaking power 
of that State. The loyal people are entitled to the government and gov- 
ernmental authority of the State, and, fellow-citizens, it is the assumption 
of that authority upon which we are now about to enter. 

It will be for us by firmness, and by prudence, by wisdom, by discretion 
in all our acts, to inaugurate every step we take for the purpose of restoring 
law and order to this ancient Commonwealth; to mark well our steps, and 
to implore the divine wisdom and direction of Him that ruleth above, who 
has every hair of our heads numbered, and who suffereth not a sparrow to 
fall unnoticed to the ground, and His guidance and direction in enabling 
us to carry out the great work we have undertaken here in humility, but 
with decision and determination. 

Pursuant to the third clause of the ordinance passed June 19, 
a meeting of the general assembly of Virginia was held on the 
ist day of July, the members of which had been duly chosen 
at the general election on the 23d day of May, 1861. 

The general assembly, on the 9th day of July, elected John 
S. CarUle, of Harrison County, and Waitman T. Willey, of 
MonongaUa County, as successors in the Senate of the United 
States to R. M. T. Hunter and James M. Mason, who had 
resigned their seats in that body. William G. Erown, Jacob B. 
Blair, and Killian V. Whaley, who had been elected to the 
House of Representatives on the same day that the members 



lyo Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

of the general assembly were chosen, at once proceeded to 
Washington, where "they were admitted to seats in the respec- 
tive Houses as Senators and Representatives from Virginia." 

On June 28, 1861, William G. Brown, James Burley, John S. 
Burdett, John S. Carlile, John J. Jackson, James C. McGrew, 
George McC. Porter, Chapman J. Stuart, and Campbell Tarr 
were expelled from the Richmond convention, and the seats of 
Marshal M. Dent, Ephraim B. Hall, and Chester D. Hubbard 
were declared vacant, and on November 16 of the same year, 
at the first adjourned session of the Richmond convention, it 
was 

Resolved, That Waitman T. Willey be, and he is hereby, expelled as a 
member of this body, on account of his disloyalty to the Confederate States, 
and his adherence to the enemies of the same. 

The President of the United States had already recognized 
the restored government as de jure and de facto the government 
of Virginia. This government levied and collected taxes and 
was represented by county and magisterial district officers in 
every countv of Virginia that was not within the lines of the 
confederate army. 

At the election held on the fourth Thursday of May, 1862, 
Governor Pierpont was elected to fill out the unexpired term 
of John Letcher, who had been elected governor for the term of 
four years beginning on the ist day of January, i860, and on 
the fourth Thursday of May, 1863, he was reelected for a full 
term of four years beginning January i, 1864. 

Because the seat of the restored government was at Wheeling 
many people have fallen into the error of supposing that Gov- 
ernor Pierpont was governor of West Virginia, but that State 
did not come into existence until the 20th day of June, 1863, up 
to which date all the functions and powers of the government 
of Virginia had been exercised by the legislative, executive, and 
judicial departments of the loyal or restored government, and 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia lyi 



step by step the pi:oper proceedings had been taken by which, 
in accordance with the provision of the Constitution of the 
United States, the consent of the State of Virginia to the crea- 
tion of the State of West Virginia had been given in manner 
and form strictly according to the provisions of the National 
Constitution. 

The act of Congress giving the consent of the United States 
to the admission of West Virginia, and declaring it to be one of 
the States of the Federal Union, and admitted into the Union 
on an equal footing with the original States in all respects 
whatever, was signed by President Lincoln on the 31st day of 
December, 1862, and the constitution of the State having been 
ratified by a majority of all the votes cast in the counties 
embraced within the proposed State, the act was, by proclama- 
tion of the President, issued on the 20th day of April, 1863, 
declared to be in effect and force from and after sixty days 
from the date of the proclamation, and on the 20th day of June, 
1863, was added this thirty-fifth star to the galaxy of States.. 

Governor PierponT, with the other state officers, removed 
from Wheeling to Alexandria, Virginia, before the inauguration 
of the state government of West Virginia, and on the 25th day 
of May, 1865, shortly after the surrender of the confederate 
troops, he removed with the other officers of the state govern- 
ment to Richmond, where he continued to administer the office 
of governor till the end of his term, January i, 1868. In the 
meantime the Southern States were placed under military gov- 
ernments and divided into miUtary districts. The first district 
included the territory of Virginia— that is to say, that part of 
the old State that remained after carving out West Virginia— 
and Major-General John M. Schofield was placed in command 
of this district. The relations between General Schofield and 
Governor Pierpont were cordial and without friction, contrary 



172 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

to the popular belief, for he was permitted to hold over and to 
exercise the powers of the governorship until the i6th day of 
April, 1868, when General Schofield appointed Henry W. Wells 
provisional governor. 

The giant oak towering above its fellows is the product of 
centuries of sunshine and storm, of nourishment drawn from 
earth and air and sky. It has been toughened and strengthened 
by the blasts of many a winter, and through its veins courses 
the sap of a virile energy that makes it the monarch of the for- 
est. So when nature would make a man of heroic mold, fitted 
for cares and great responsibilities and capable of being a leader 
of thought and of men of action in a great crisis, she pours into 
his veins and works into his brain the sturdy vigor of the 
thoughts and deeds of a long line of noble ancestors. 

Nurtured by the sunshine of a long and proud ancestry, wa- 
tered by the gentle dews of a cultured, serene home life, with 
mental and moral fiber toughened and strengthened by the 
struggles and experience of his early manhood, with the sap of 
virile energy coursing through his veins, Francis H. Pierpont, 
like the giant oak of the primeval forest, stood unbending, up- 
right, and unafraid when the lightnings swept across the lower- 
ing sky and the thunderous mutterings of civil war broke upon 
a peace-loving people. 

The "War Governor of Virginia" was not the product or the 
creation of the events of the civil war, though they gave him 
the opportunity to manifest his preeminence. He was the mas- 
terful genius who gave shape to the thought that was in the 
minds of all the men of western Virginia, who led in the prepar- 
ing and planning, and who was recognized as the courageous, 
indomitable leader into whose hands could safely be committed 
the power and the responsibility of the revitalized state govern- 
ment of Virginia. 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 173 



His voice rang out like a trumpet in scores of speeches de- 
livered in iiamlet, village, and city, encouraging the timid, 
stimulating to action the more courageous, and pointing out the 
way in which the letter and the spirit of the National Consti- 
tution could be observed and, by the inherent power of the 
people, by whose consent the State and National Governments 
exist, could reassert the right to fill the offices created by law 
and made vacant ipso facto by the treason of the officers who 
had placed themselves in rebellion and beyond the lines of the 
territory within the actual jurisdiction and the power of the 
National Government. 

Such a life as Governor PierponT's is not one that springs up 
in a single generation. When God needs a man for a great 
work, I believe we will always find He has been years in pre- 
paring him for his task through the generations that lie behind 
him, and Francis H. PierponT was no exception to this rule. 
He sprang from a race of sturdy men whose lives had exerted a 
decided influence on their fellows for a thousand years. There 
is not a break in the family line from the subject of this ad- 
dress back to one Sir Hugh, who in the year 980 was Lord of 
Castle Pierpont in Picardy, branching from the Lords of Castle 
Pierrepont, 6 miles from St. Sauveur, Normandy. Not finding 
a ferry there, Charlemagne caused a stone bridge to be built, 
giving the name "Stonebridge" or Pierrepont to the place. 
Commenting on the name, John Pierpont, the grandfather of 
John Pierpont Morgan, who was a cousin and devoted personal 
friend of Governor Pierpont, says: 

The name is, like most other names, originally significant; a compound 
of the French "pier," stone, and "ppnt," bridge. You, sir, being inter- 
preted, are Governor Stonebridge; and every stone bridge in the country 
is nominally a Pierpont, and of all bridges the piers are the most substan- 
tial part, and generally support the rest. 

A younger son of the family, Sir Robert de Pierrepont, knight, 
went from France to England in 1066 as a commander under 



174 Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

William the Conqueror, and was given large estates in Suffolk 
and Sussex. His grandson married Frances Cavendish, a direct 
descendant of the daughter of William the Conqueror, and so 
the governor obtained his name — Francis. As we come down 
the direct line we find many a name that stands for a trait in 
Francis H. PierponT's character. There were old William the 
Conqueror, with his iron will; the Earl of Warwick, the "king 
maker;" the Earls of Surrey and Albemarle. Personal beauty, 
too, was always to be found among, the Pierponts. An historian 
of the sixteenth century says of one of his grandfathers: "He 
was the most beautiful man in England and the quickest tem- 
pered." And those of us who remember the governor's temper 
when any wrong or injustice aroused it, know he came right- 
fully by it. 

The founder of the family in America was James Pierpont, 
who came to this country in 1640, buying 300 acres of land in 
Roxbury, Massachusetts. So the "War Governor" numbered 
among his ancestors a king, and dukes and earls, but in his hon- 
est, democratic heart he -ever held, " 'Tis only noble to be good; 
kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Nor- 
man blood." The career of the Pierpont family in this country 
has been as notable as it was in England and France. Among 
the distinguished men who sprang from this man are John Pier- 
pont, the New England poet, whose writing and preaching did 
so much for the cause of freedom; Judge Edwards Pierpont, the 
statesman; and John Pierpont Morgan, the financier. Every 
generation since James landed on this continent has produced a 
great man. 

The governor was most happily married. His wife was Julia 
Robertson, a daughter of Reverend Samuel Robertson, of New 
York, and of Puritan stock. She was a cultured, beautiful, and 
high-spirited woman, whose whole soul was given to the cause 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss , of West Virginia 175 

of freedom. She bore cheerfully and charmingly all the sorrows 
and cares that came to her through her husband's devotion to 
the State. She kept open house, and to the hundreds that came 
every year to her home she extended a gracious hospitality and 
sent hundreds of boxes of provisions and delicacies and com- 
forts to the soldiers' hospitals, and so greatly were her services 
appreciated that she received on several occasions letters of 
thanks from President Lincoln and Mr. Hay, his secretary. 
After the war Mrs. Pierpont and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes 
were the first two -women elected honorary members of the 
Army of West Virginia. With her own hands she fashioned the 
first flag of the Union presented to a loyal Virginia regiment. 
This flag, worn and discolored by use in the civil war, draped 
the governor's coffin when he was buried, in 1899. She was 
her husband's most trusted and confidential adviser in every 
political move. 

Anarchy and chaos came suddenly upon western Virginia. 
The power and authority of the State could not be exercised 
west of the mountains. The State had joined the confederacy. 
The Federal Army was circumscribing her power and jurisdic- 
tion. Her Senators had resigned from the Congress of the 
United States, and her officers had renounced their allegiance 
to the National Government and most of them had taken the 
oath to support the Confederate States. If one could imagine 
the sudden physical death of every officer of the state govern- 
ment — legislative, executive, and judicial — and the sudden sus- 
pension of all the processes of the laws for the protection of 
life, liberty, and property, then one could conceive the reign 
of uncertainty, apprehension, and terror that characterized the 
year 1861. The political death of all these officers by their 
treason against the National Government operated ■ effectually 



176 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

to deprive them of all power and authority to enforce the laws 
for the protection of the citizen and his property. 

The Constitution, the fourth section of the fourth article, de- 
clares : 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a repub- 
lican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; 
and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legis- 
lature can not be convened) against domestic violence. 

The State was being "invaded" by the armies of the Con- 
federate States, made up of troops from the other States of the 
South, and "domestic violence" actually existed. It was then 
the duty of the United States to "guarantee" the republican 
form of government set up by the people of western Virginia, to 
protect them from invasion by the forces of the Confederacy, 
and from domestic violence arising from lawless men, whether 
pretending to be acting by authority of the politically defunct 
officials of the disloyal state government, or otherwise. The 
people resumed the power inherent in them when their servants 
committed political hara-kiri; reorganized and restored the state 
government; gave to all the protection of the civil laws by the 
due and orderly processes of the courts, by acts of legislation, 
and by executive enforcement. The law of self-preservation, 
the right of the people to ordain governments, and to reorganize 
and restore the government when from any cause it wholly fails 
in the purposes for which it was created, justify upon the highest 
grounds of inherent right and power, of expediency and public 
policy, the various steps by which the restored and reorganized 
government of Virginia was brought into existence. 

That existence was recognized by the President when Gov- 
ernor Pierpont officially invoked the protection of the Federal 
Government, which President Lincoln promised; by the raising 
and tendering of a number of regiments by Governor PierponT 
and their acceptance and employment by the President as Com- 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 177 

mander in Chief. The Congress gave recognition by seating 
Waitman T. Willey and John S. CarHle as Senators, duly elected 
by the legislature of the restored state government, and by seat- 
ing the Members of the House of Representatives elected under 
the laws of that government, and, lastly, by enacting the law 
admitting the State of West Virginia, in which it was recited 
that the legislature of Virginia, by an act passed on the 13th 
day of May, 1862, had given consent to the creation of the new 
State within the jurisdiction of the State of Virginia. Section 
3, Article IV, of the Constitution, provides that — 

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no 
new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other 
State * * * without the consent of the legislatures of the States 
concerned, as well as of Congress. 

Here we have the recognition of the restored government of 
Virginia as created upon the initiative of the people of western 
Virginia, through the various steps before recited, by the Presi- 
dent and by Congress; the consent of Virginia through the legis- 
lature of the restored government of Virginia by the act of May 
13, 1862; the consent of Congress by the act of December 31, 
1862, approved by the President, and his proclamation of April 
20, 1863. 

Secretary of State William H. Seward, in an opinion given to 
Mr. Lincoln at his request, said, in part: 

It seems to me that the political body which has given consent in this 
case is really and incontestably the State of Virginia. So long as the 
United States do not recognize the secession, departure, or separation of 
one of the States that State must be deemed as existing and having a con- 
stitutional place within the Union whatever may be at any moment its 
revolutionary condition. A State thus situated can not be deemed to be 
divided into two or more States merely by any revolutionary proceeding 
which may have occurred, because there can not be, constitutionally, two 
or more States of Virginia. * * * fhe newly organized State of Vir- 
ginia is, therefore, at this moment by the express consent of the United 
States, invested with all the rights of the State of Virginia and charged 
with all the powers, privileges, and dignity of that State. If the United 
49963° — 10 12 



lyS Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

States allow to that organization any of these rights, powers, and privi- 
leges it must be allowed to possess and enjoy them all. If it be a State 
competent to be represented in Congress and bound to pay taxes, it is a 
State competent to give the required consent of the State to the formation 
and erection of the new State of West Virginia within the jurisdiction of 
Virginia. 

After discussing the question in detail, Secretary Chase, 

afterwards Chief Justice, declared: 

It does not admit of doubt, as it seems to me, that the legislature which 
gave its consent to the formation and erection of the State of West Vir- 
ginia was the true and only lawful legislature of the State of Virginia. 

The legal title of Francis H. Pierpont, as governor of Vir- 
ginia from the 20th day of June, 1861, to the i6th day of April, 
1868, is thus shown to stand upon as firm and incontestable a 
foundation as the legal and constitutional right of West Vir- 
ginia to her place as "a State of the Union on an equal footing 
with the original States in all respects whatever." 

Virginia stood among the Southern States as primus inter 
pares by virtue of her proud history in the Colonial period and 
in the Revolutionary war; by the contributions of her great 
statesmen and orators; by the Declaration of Independence, 
written by her brilliant and patriotic son; by her contributions 
to the jurisprudence of the country; by her expounders of the 
Constitution; by her great territorial area, her variety of soil 
and climate, her splendid harbors and extended seacoast, and 
by her imperial gift of that great empire of the Northwest, but 
of which were carved many a State, donated in the interests 
of harmony and union among the sister States of the untried 
Republic. 

By the glory of these memories and traditions Virginia should 
have been the first to defend the Union and the last to dim her 
pristine glory and sully her immaculate record by trailing in the 
rear of the States that one by one passed ordinances of secession 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 179 



and set up what was intended to be an alien and hostile con- 
federacy. 

But disregarding all the influences of her glorious history, 
she yielded to the seductive voice of treason, and, the last to 
join the confederacy, by a species of retributive justice, was 
the first to suffer the pains and penalties of bloody war. Her 
bosom was scarred by the tramp of contending legions, her 
homes were desolated by fire, shot, and shell, and her popula- 
tion decimated by the wasting sickness of camp, and by cannon 
and saber and bayonet. She, more than any other State of the 
South, bore the shock of civil war, endured the paralysis and 
destruction of her commerce, agriculture, and business, saw 
her slaves emancipated and lost as a source of profit, and, to 
crown the climax of her humiliation, was bereft of one-third 
of her territory, population, and wealth by a process akin to 
the Caesarian operation. She was literally rent and torn by 
the intense passions engendered by a long series of acts of 
injustice, discrimination, and humiliation meted out to her 
citizens living west of the mountains, and, by the attempt to 
drag them from their allegiance to the Union, compelled them 
to rebel and tear themselves loose, inspired by a spirit of loy- 
alty to the Nation and a love of independence and hatred of 
injustice. 

As if to forever mark and perpetuate the memory of the 
contending titanic forces at work, when the State was rent in 
twain, the boundary lines of both States were irregular, ragged, 
and ungainly, like the outUnes of some mighty mountain torn 
apart by volcanic power. Thus was the third great result of 
the war forever impressed upon the political geography of the 
Republic. 

Overtures were made in 1866 by the Virginia assembly for the 
redintegration of the States, but met with no response from 
West Virginia. No one in public life in West Virginia, whether 



i8o Governor Francis H arrison Pierpont 

Democrat or Republican, whether identified with the South 
during the war period or with the Union, has ever raised his 
voice in favor of a reunion of the States. All are equally proud 
of the State, its splendid resources, its magnificent development 
on material, educational, and industrial lines, and each vies with 
the other in unquestioned loyalty to the State whose motto so 
well expresses the universal sentiment, " Montani semper liberi." 

Nearly forty-five years have elapsed since the close of the 
mightiest drama ever enacted upon the stage of the Western 
Continent. Passions have been stilled. Brethern North and 
South recognize that the civil war was not an unmixed evil. 
Slavery was a curse to master and man, an incubus upon the 
South, upon her soil, and her most magnificent natural wealth, 
deterring capital and free labor, holding back education and 
intelligence among her poorer people, both black and white. 
With bounding strides, like a young giant loosed of his fetters, 
the South is rivaling the North in the race for supremacy, in 
developing her mines and her forests, in factories, furnaces, 
railroads, agriculture, lumbering, and all forms of manufactur- 
ing enterprises. With wisdom in seizing the benefits of that 
policy that encourages a diversification of industries, the South 
may hope to surpass in prosperity and wealth her sister States 
of the North. Of the South it may most truly be said, "No 
pent-up Utica contracts her powers." The whole boundless 
continent is hers. Mighty rivers, great harbors, bays, and 
gulfs; coal, iron, and oil, marble, sulphur, and timber; genial 
climate and fertile soil, and most beautiful and picturesque 
mountains, vales, and streams; and the trade facilities offered 
by her proximity to the Central and South American Republics 
and to the Orient by the Isthmian Canal, soon to be completed, 
stimulate her sons to industrial activity and invite the enter- 
prise, the labor, and the capital of the world. 

Virginia and West Virginia have placed in the National Hall 
of Fame types of men strikingly dissimilar in their relationship 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia i8i 



to the events of the civil war, yet with many things in common 
that ennobled them both. Robert E. Lee, the great soldier, 
modest in the height of his power, dignified and serene in de- 
feat, clean in morals, pure in private life, and unsullied by any 
suspicion of dishonesty or self-seeking, and with a profound 
Christian faith and character— a very Sir Galahad — stands in 
the Hall of Statuary near Francis H. Pierpont, whose purity 
of private life and character is well typified by the chiseled 
marble that perpetuates his memory. He, too, was unspoiled 
by honors, was cheerful under all the cares of his great office 
in the "times that tried men's souls," and above all suspicion 
of mercenary motives or of profit by his position. He also had 
the absolute faith of the sincere Christian. 
Each believed — 

The Master, when He made him, gave him hfe, and gave him breath 

Whispered he should be immortal. Shall the Lord be robbed by death? 
Nay! The clay on yonder hillside, molded by our God's own hands, 
Shall be dowered with life eternal when His saints before Him stand. 

Each was sincere in his convictions that he was doing the 
right as God gave him to see the right. If each could speak, 
he would take no umbrage at the presence and proximity of the 
other in that Hall dedicated to the memory of the acknowledged 
good and great of the States which they represent. 

It is said that "no man is great to his valet," but these men 
won the confidence and love of the strong men intimately asso- 
ciated with them in the great work that occupied their Hves 
during the years of the civil war. It is praise, indeed, when 
matured and able men of strong conviction and large experience 
and with high ideals give hearty approval, support, and praise. 
Such were the men in West Virginia who were in closest touch 
with Governor Pierpont— Senators Waitman T. Willey and 
Peter G. Van Winkle, Governor A. I. Boreman, Congressmen 
W. G. Brown, Chester D. Hubbard, and James C. McGrew, 
Judges R. L. Berkshire and Brown, and many others. 



i82 Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont 

Revolution and rebellion, loyalty and treason, are relative 
terms in political history. A successful rebellion is a revolu- 
tion. An unsuccessful revolution is a rebellion. The traitor of 
one may be the patriot of the other when written in the annals 
of the historian. Nothing so justifies a political enterprise as 
success. The only treason in ethics is disloyalty to moral ideals. 

But happily all speculation is ended with the civil strife. 

The Union is restored and cemented in foundations deeper and 

stronger than ever in the respect each section has for the other. 

The poet's apostrophe is doubly appropriate now than when he 

wrote: 

Sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 

Humanity with all its fears. 

With all the hopes of future years. 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 
'Tis but the flapping of the sail. 
And not a rent made by the gale! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 
In spite of false lights on the shore. 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
. Are all with thee — are all with thee! 

West Virginia has this day unveiled in the Capitol of the 

Nation the statue of Francis Harrison Pierpont, one of 

her best-beloved citizens, renowned as a patriot, administrator, 

and statesman, and now confides this memorial to the care and 

keeping of Congress. 



Address of Mr. Sturgiss, of West Virginia 183 



r move, Mr. Chairman, the adoption of the resolution of 
acceptance. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to 
the Senate concurrent resolution No. 24. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

Mr. Sturgiss. Mr. Speaker, I move, as a further mark of 
respect to the memory and pubHc services of the late Francis 
H. PiERPONT, that the House do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 24 minutes p. m.) the House 
adjourned. 



Pi^r 11 



/■I. 



